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IValks About TVashington 






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Where Lincoln Died 

Frontispiece 



WALKS ABOUT 
WASHINGTON 



BY 



(VT 



FRANCIS E. LEUPP 



WITH DRAWINGS BY 

LESTER G. HORNBY 



non-refekT 




^WVAD-QIS 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1915 






Copyright, igi^. 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 



All rights reserved 
Published, September, 191 5 



Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Gushing Co., Norwood, Mas-:., U.S.A. 
Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 



Y SEP 30 1915 

©CI.A4107'J5 



ADA, HAROLD, ETHEL 
CONSTANCE, KATHLEEN 

AND THE 

MEMORY OF GRAHAM 
















Preface 



THIS is not a history. It is not a guide-book. 
It is not an encyclopedia. It is nothing more 
ambitious than the title would indicate : a stroll about 
Washington with my arm through my reader's, and a 
bit of friendly chat by the way. Mr. Hornby, sketch- 
book in hand, will accompany us, to give permanence 
to our impressions here and there. 

First, we will take a general look at the city and 
recall some of the more interesting incidents connected 
with its century and a quarter of growth. Next, we 
will walk at our leisure through its public places and 

[ vii] 



Preface 

try to people them in imagination with the figures 
which once were so much in evidence there. 

For the stories woven into our talk I make no fur- 
ther claim than that they have come to me from a 
variety of sources — personal observation, dinner-table 
gossip, old letters and diaries, and local tradition. A 
few, which seemed rather too vague in detail, I have 
tried to verify. My ardor for research, however, was 
dampened by the discovery of from two to a dozen 
versions of every occurrence, so that I have been driven 
to accepting those which appeared most probable or 
most picturesque, falling back upon the plea of the 
Last Minstrel : 

" I cannot tell how the truth may be ; 
I say the tale as 'twas said to me." 

And now, let us be off ! 

F. E. L. 

Washington, D.C, 
August I, 1915. 



[ viil ] 







^f 



Contents 



Preface 

Chapter 

I. A Capital Made to Order 

II. War Times and Their Sequel . 

III. "On the Hill" .... 

IV. These Our Lawmakers 

V. "The Other End of the Avenue 

VI. Through Many Changing Years 

VII. "The Spirit of Great Events" . 

VIII. New Faces in Old Places . 

IX. The Region 'Round About • 

X. Monuments and Memories . 

Index 



Page 
vii 

I 

26 

54 

85 

114 

147 

177 

207 

235 
261 

287 



[ix] 










Zy/i^/ ^ Illustrations 



White House, from the State Department . 
Where Lincoln Died ..... 
Down F Street to the Interior Department . 
Old Mill, on Bladensburg Battlefield . 
Washington, across the Potomac from Arlington 
Capitol, from Pennsylvania Avenue, West . 

General Washington's Office in Georgetown . 
George Washington Tavern, Bladensburg 
Octagon House ...... 

Union Engine House of 1 815 
On the Ruins of Fort Stevens 

[xi] 



Page 

i 

Frontispiece 

vii 

ix 

xi 

xiii 
Facing Page 



18 

30 
42 

SO 



List of Illustrations 



Survivals from "Before the War" 

Rock Creek ....... 

Capitol, from New Jersey Avenue 

Where Dolly Madison Gave Her Farewell Ball 

Lee Mansion at Arlington .... 

Old Carlyle Mansion, Alexandria . 
Washington's Pew in Christ Church, Alexandria 
Mount Vernon ...... 

Tudor House, Georgetown .... 

Bladensburg Duelling-Ground 

Decatur House ...... 

Soldiers' Home ...... 

Old City Hall 

The "Old Capitol" 

St. Paul's, the Oldest Church in the District 

St. John's, "the President's Church" . 

Ford's Theatre, the Old Front 

Stage Entrance through which Booth Escaped 

Rendezvous of the Lincoln Conspirators 

A Herdic Cab 



Facing Page 
62 



74 

84 
96 
108 
120 
132 
142 

154 

156 
170 
180 
192 
204 
218 

234 
248 
260 
274 
286 



[xli] 









• t! 



Ilr|f !f. 



=".-<, 



Walks About Washington 

CHAPTER I 
A CAPITAL MADE TO ORDER 

WITH the possible exception of Petrograd, Wash- 
ington is the only one of the world's great 
capitals that was deliberately created for its purpose. 
Look for the origin of London, Paris, Berlin, or Rome, 
and you find it enveloped in a cloud of myth and fable, 
from which, it appears, the city emerged and took 
its place in history because certain evolutionary forces 
had made it the nucleus of a nation and hence the 
natural seat of government. Not so the capital of 
the United States. Here the Government was already 
established and seeking a habitation ; and, since no 
existing city offered one that seemed generally satis- 
factory, a new city was made to order, so that from the 
outset it could be shaped as its tenant-master deemed 
best. 

The creative force at work in this instance found 
its outlet through a dinner. Of the ready-made cities 
which had competed for the honor of housing the 

[I] 



Walks About Washington 

Government, New York and Philadelphia were regarded 
by the Southern members of Congress as too far 
north both geographically and in sentiment, while the 
Northern members were equally unwilling to go far 
south in view of the difficulties of travel. Another 
sectional controversy broke out over the question 
whether the Federal Government, since it owed its 
birth to the War for Independence, were not in honor 
bound to assume the debts incurred by the several 
States in prosecuting that war. The North, as the 
more serious sufferer, demanded that it should, but 
the South insisted that every State should bear its 
own burden. In the midst of the discussion, Thomas 
Jefferson, who happened to be in a position to act as 
mediator, invited a few leaders of both factions to meet 
at his table ; there, under the influence of savory viands 
and a bottle of port apiece, they arranged a compro- 
mise, whereby the Southern members were to vote for 
the assumption of the debts, in exchange for Northern 
votes for a southern site. The program went through 
Congress by a small majority, and the site chosen was 
a tract about ten miles square on both banks of the 
Potomac River, the land on the upper shore being 
ceded by Maryland and that on the lower by Virginia. 
The Virginia part was given back in 1846. 

As far as we know, the first map of this region was 

[2] 



A Capital Made to Order 

drawn by Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame and 
published in 1620 in his "Sixth Voyage to that Part 
of Virginia now Planted by English Colonies, whom 
God increase and preserve"; and the picturesque 
river which runs through it was described by him as 
the "Patawomeke, navigable 140 myles, and fed with 
many sweet rivers and springs which fall from the 
bordering hils. The river exceedth with aboundance 
of fish." 

When the Commissioners appointed by President 
Washington took it over as a federal district, they 
changed its Indian name, Connogochegue, to the 
Territory of Columbia ; and the city which they laid 
out in it was by universal acclaim called Washington, 
regardless of the modest protests of the statesman thus 
honored. Georgetown, which is now a part of Wash- 
ington, was then a pretty, well-to-do, little Maryland 
town about a hundred years old, and Alexandria, 
Virginia, included in the southern end of the District 
as then bounded, was a shipping port of some conse- 
quence. All the rest of the tract was forest and farm 
land. The President felt a lively personal interest 
in the whole neighborhood. His estate. Mount Ver- 
non, lay only a short boat-ride down the Potomac ; 
and he had been instrumental in starting a project for 
the canal now known as the Chesapeake and Ohio, 

[3] 



IValks About W^ashington 

connecting Georgetown with a bit of farming country 
west of it, and had planned one from Alexandria which 
should form part of the same system. During his 
activities on the Maryland side of the river, he made 
his headquarters in a little stone house in Georgetown 
which is still standing. 

It took time and diplomacy to induce some of the 
local landholders to part with their acres to the Com- 
missioners. There is an old story, good enough to 
be true, of one David Burns, a canny Scot, who held 
out so long that President Washington personally 
undertook his conversion. After pointing out to the 
farmer what advantages he would reap from having 
the Government for a neighbor, the great man con- 
cluded : 

"But for this opportunity, Mr. Burns, you might 
have died a poor tobacco-planter." 

"Aye, mon," snapped Burns, "an' had ye no married 
the widder Custis, wi' all her nagurs, ye'd ha' been a 
land surveyor the noo, an' a mighty poor ane at that !" 

However, when he learned that, unless he accepted 
the liberal terms oflFered him, his land would be con- 
demned and seized at an appraisal probably much 
lower. Burns met the President in quite another mood, 
and to the final question, "Well, sir, what have you 
concluded to do V astonished every one by his prompt 

[4] 



A Capital Made to Order 

response: "Whate'er your excellency wad ha' me." 
On one of his fields now stands the White House, and 
an adjacent lot became Lafayette Square. By the 
sale of property adjoining that which the Government 
bought, he amassed what for those days was an enor- 
mous fortune. It is within our generation that his 
cottage was torn down for the improvement of the 
neighborhood from which we enter Potomac Park. 
Although a poor building in its old age, in its prime it 
had sheltered many eminent men. Among them was 
Tom Moore, the Irish poet, who was under its roof 
when he wrote his diatribe against — 

" This fam'd metropolis where Fancy sees 
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees ; 
Which second-sighted seers, ev'n now, adorn 
With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn." 

Little as we may relish such satire, we are bound 
to admit its modicum of truthfulness, for the brave 
souls who founded Washington were given to the 
grandiloquent habit of their day. They had called 
to their aid Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a French 
military engineer who had served in the patriot army 
of the Revolution, and who cherished brilliant dreams 
of the future of his adopted country. To him they had 
committed the preparation of a plan for the federal 
city, and he had laid it out on the lines, not of an 

[5l 



JValks About JVashington 

administrative center for a handful of newly enfran- 
chised colonies, but of a capital for a republic of fifty 
States with five hundred million population. As he 
had lived in Versailles, he is supposed to have taken 
that town as a general model in his arrangement of 
streets and avenues, which some one has likened to 
*'a wheel laid on a gridiron." 

Of course, it was the business of the Commissioners 
to advertise the attractions of the federal city as effec- 
tively as possible, to promote its early settlement ; 
so perhaps we may forgive their taking a good deal for 
granted, and permitting real estate speculation to go 
practically unchecked. Congress for several years ig- 
nored their appeals for an appropriation for the devel- 
opment of the city, and in the interval their chief 
dependence for the funds necessary to spend for high- 
ways and buildings was on the sale of lots, and on 
grants or loans obtained from neighboring States. The 
most sightly hill was set apart for the Capitol, and a 
beautiful bit of rising ground, overlooking a bend in the 
river, for the President's House. The two buildings 
had their corner-stones laid with much ceremony, but 
progress on them was slow. Nevertheless, their sites, 
as well as the spaces reserved in L'Enfant's plan for 
parks, fountains, and statuary, were always treated 
by the speculators, in correspondence with prospective 

[6] 



A Capital Made to Order 

customers, as if the Improvements designed eventually 
to crown them were already installed. ; The outside 
public manifested no undue eagerness to buy, and the 
auction sales of lots proved very disappointing. Then 
a lottery was organized, with tickets at seven dollars 
apiece, and for a first prize "a superb hotel" with 
baths and other comforts, worth fifty thousand dollars ; 
but that, too, fell short of expectations, all the desir- 
able prizes going to persons who felt no concern for 
the city's future, and the hotel, though started, 
never being finished. It was a pretty discouraging 
prospect, therefore, which confronted the officers of the 
Government when, on May i6, 1800, President John 
Adams issued his order for their removal from their 
cozy quarters in old Philadelphia to what seemed 
to them, by contrast, like a camp in the wilderness. 

The six Cabinet members, with their one hundred 
and thirty-two subordinates, made the journey over- 
land at various dates during the summer, and in Oc- 
tober the archives followed. These filled about a 
dozen large boxes, which, with the office furniture, 
were brought down by sea in a packet-boat and landed 
on a wharf at the mouth of Tiber Creek, a tributary 
of the Potomac which then ran through the city but 
was later converted into a sewer. All Washington, 
numbering perhaps three thousand persons, turned out 

[7] 



Walks About WashinGTton 



<^ 



to greet the vessel ; and amid cheers, ringing of bells, 
and blasts from an antique cannon brought forth for 
the occasion, its precious contents were carried ashore. 
"The Department buildings" to which they were 
consigned were a wonderful assortment. The Treas- 
ury was a two-story brick house at the southeast corner 
of the President's grounds, the War Office a still un- 
finished replica of it at the southwest corner. The 
Post-office Department found shelter in a private 
house in which only half the floors were laid and four 
rooms plastered ; while the Secretary of State, the 
Secretary of the Navy, and the Attorney-general had to 
direct their affairs from their lodgings. All these tem- 
porary accommodations were sought as near as possible 
to the President's House. Congress had striven, for 
its greater ease of access, to have the Departments 
quartered near the Capitol ; but Washington had set 
his face resolutely against every such proposal, citing 
the experience of his own secretaries, who had been so 
pestered with needless visits from Senators and Repre- 
sentatives that some of them "had been obliged to 
go home and deny themselves, in order to transact 
current business." Which shows that one modern nui- 
sance has a fairly ancient precedent. 

Members of both houses of Congress came straggling 
in all through the first three weeks of November, to 

[8] 



A Capital Made to Order 

find most of the best rooms in the two or three hotels 
and the little cluster of boarding-houses already occu- 
pied by the executive functionaries and their families. 
President Adams, who had preceded them by a few 
weeks, was not much better off even in the official 
abode reserved for him, if we may call his wife as a 
witness. 

"The house is on a grand and superb scale," she 
wrote to her daughter, "requiring about thirty serv- 
ants to attend and keep the apartments in proper 
order, and perform the ordinary business of the house 
and stables. The lighting the apartments, from the 
kitchen to the parlor and chambers, is a tax indeed ; 
and the fires we are obliged to keep, to secure us from 
daily agues, is another very cheering comfort. Bells 
are wholly wanting, not one single one being hung 
through the whole house, and promises are all you can 
obtain. I could content myself almost anywhere three 
months ; but surrounded by forests, can you believe 
that wood is not to be had, because people cannot be 
found to cut and cart it ! \ There is not a single apart- 
ment finished. We have not the least fence or yard, 
or other convenience without ; and the great unfin- 
ished audience-room I make a drying-room of, to hang 
up the clothes in. The principal stairs are not up, 
and will not be this winter. The ladies are impatient 

[9I 



Walks About Washi7igton 

for a drawing-room ; I have no looking-glasses but 
dwarfs for this house, not a twentieth part lamps 
enough to light it." 

Mrs. Adams's consolatory reflection that she would 
have to endure these conditions only three months, 
was probably shared by many of the thirty-two Sen- 
ators and one hundred and five Representatives who, 
on the high hill to the east, shivered and shook and 
passed unflattering criticisms on everybody who had 
had a hand in the construction of the Capitol. Only 
the old north wing was in condition for use, and not 
all of that. The Senate met in what is now the Su- 
preme Court chamber; the House took its chances 
wherever there was room, ending its travels in an 
uncomfortable box of a hall commonly styled "the 
oven." Most of the members had made some study 
of the L'Enfant chart before coming to Washington. 
One of them put into writing his impressions as he 
looked about and tried to identify the public im- 
provements he had been led to expect. None of the 
streets was recognizable, he said, with the possible 
exception of a road having two buildings on each side 
of it, which was called New Jersey Avenue. The 
"magnificent Pennsylvania Avenue," connecting the 
Capitol with the President's House, was for nearly the 
entire distance a deep morass covered with wild bushes, 

[10] 



A Capital Made to Order 

through which a passage had been hewn. The roads 
in every direction were muddy and unimproved. The 
only attempt at a sidewalk had been made with chips 
of stone left from building the Capitol, and this was 
little used because the sharp edges cut the walker's 
shoes in dry weather, and in wet weather covered them 
with white mortar. Another member declared that 
there was nothing in sight in, Washington but scrub 
oak, and that, since there was "only one good tavern 
within a day's march," many members had to live in 
Georgetown and drive to and from the daily sessions 
of Congress in a rickety coach. And a particularly 
disgusted critic, not content with recording that 
"there are but few houses in any place, and most of 
them are small, miserable huts," added: "The people 
are poor, and, as far as I can judge, live like fishes, 
by eating each other." 

Newspapers in all parts of the country echoed these 
depressing reports, accompanying them with demands 
that the Government move again, this time to some 
already well-populated and civilized region. Indeed, 
of several resolutions to that end introduced in Con- 
gress, one was actually carried to a vote and barely 
escaped passage. It may have been this accumulation 
of discouraging elements which caused the delay in the 
arrival of the Supreme Court from Philadelphia ; or 

[III 



Walks About Washington 

it may have been the paucity of business before that 
tribunal, whose first Chief Justice, John Ja}', had 
resigned his commission to become Governor of New- 
York, because he had come to the conclusion that the 
Court could not command sufficient support in the 
country at large to enforce its decisions ! Whatever 
the reason, the Justices did not find their way to Wash- 
ington till well on in the winter, or open their work there 
till February. They were assigned the room in the 
basement of the Capitol now occupied by the Supreme 
Court library. 

Even when the first acute discomforts incident to 
removal had passed away, the general depression was 
little relieved. Most of the earlier citizens of Wash- 
ington had entertained hopes of its becoming a com- 
mercial as well as a political center of importance. 
They reasoned that since Alexandria and Georgetown 
had already built up some trade with the outside world, 
Washington, much more eligibly situated than either, 
ought to attract a correspondingly larger measure of 
profitable business. But all these bright anticipa- 
tions were doomed to disappointment : the progress 
of the city was as inconsiderable as if its feet had be- 
come mired in one of its own marshes. The Mall, 
which on L'Enfant's map appeared as a boulevard 
fringed with fine public buildings, soon degenerated 

[12] 



A Capital Made to Order 

into a common for pasturing cows. There was good 
fishing above the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue 
from Sixth Street to Thirteenth. Wild ducks found 
a favorite haunt where the Center Market now stands. 
The whole place wore an air of suspended vitality in 
striking contrast with the generous face of nature. 
"I am," wrote a visiting New Yorker to his wife, 
"almost enchanted with it — I mean the situation 
for a city, for there is nothing here yet constituting 
one. As to houses, there are very few, and those 
very scattering ; and as to streets, there are none, 
except you would call common roads streets. The 
site, however, for a city, is the most delightful that can 
be imagined — far beyond my expectation. 
\ "I took a hack after dinner to visit Nath'l Maxwell, 
and although he lives near the center of the great city, 
yet such was the state of the roads that I considered 
my life in danger. The distance on straight lines does 
not exceed half a mile, but I had to ride up and down 
very steep hills, with frightful gullies on almost every 
side." And the simplicity of life at the capital then is 
reflected in his statement that after finishing his letters 
one night he was afraid to go out to post them lest he 
lose his way in the dark, though he knew that the mail 
would close at five in the morning. "After I had got 
comfortably into bed," he continued, "a watchman 

[13] 



Walks About Washington 

came past my window bawling out, *Past one o'clock, 
and a very stormy night,' on which I sprang out of 
bed and called to him to take my letters to the post- 
office, which he consented to do. I accordingly 
wrapped them in a sheet of paper to protect them from 
the wet, and threw them out of the chamber window 
to him." 

The declaration of war against Great Britain in 
June, 1 812, for which the country at large held Presi- 
dent Madison chiefly responsible, and which reduced 
considerably such measure of popularity as he still 
retained, did not produce much effect on the pulses of 
the stagnant city. The first hostilities occurred in 
the north and on the sea ; and, although the enemy 
threatened Washington for more than a year, Madison 
and most of his advisers regarded an attack as highly 
improbable. When, however, it became known in 
1 814 that a large body of Wellington's veterans were 
setting sail from England, under convoy of a powerful 
fleet, for the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, every one sud- 
denly awoke to the impending peril. It was then too 
late. Thanks to the misjudgment of General Arm- 
strong, Secretary of War, or General Winder, who was 
in charge of military affairs in the District, midsummer 
found the enemy in Maryland, but the city still with- 
out an efficient defensive force, or ammunition or pro- 

[14I 



A Capital Made to Order 

visions to equip one properly. Hurried efforts brought 
together a first Hne of thirty-one hundred men, all 
raw recruits except six hundred sailors and a couple 
of hundred soldiers. A second line, almost equal in 
number, was formed, mostly of militia, and disposed 
for use as a home guard. At Bladensburg, Maryland, 
five miles north of Washington, the decisive battle 
occurred on the twenty-fourth of August, from which 
the seamen led by Captain Joshua Barney were the 
only contingent that emerged with extraordinary 
credit; but they did so well that a grateful commu- 
nity has not yet raised a monument to them or their 
leader. The battlefield was close enough to the old 
George Washington tavern, of which Mr. Hornby gives 
us an intimate glimpse, for the occupants to hear the 
rattle of musketry and see the cannon-smoke from 
the upper windows. 

The outcome of the fight was that the British com- 
manders. General Ross and Admiral Cockburn, with 
six thousand men, drove the Americans back and 
swept down upon the city, spreading ruin in their track. 
Ross had his horse killed under him by a shot from a 
private house he was passing and kept more in the 
background thereafter, but Cockburn was active in 
the work of devastation. Tradition describes him as 
mounting the Speaker's dais in the Hall of Represen- 

[IS] 



Walks About Washi7igton 

tatives, calling a burlesque session of Congress to order, 
and putting the question: "Shall this harbor of Yan- 
kee democracy be burned ? All in favor will say, 
'Aye'!" There was a roar of "Ayes" from the men, 
who at once set going a mammoth bonfire of written 
records and volumes from the library of Congress, and 
soon the whole Capitol was wrapped in flames. Thence 
the party proceeded to the other public buildings, 
burning whatever was recognizable as the property of 
the Government. Their progress was nearly every- 
where unopposed, the clerks in charge having gathered 
up such books and papers as they could carry away, 
and transported them to the most convenient hiding- 
places. 

The first break in this program occurred at the Pat- 
ent Office, which was under the superintendency of 
Doctor William Thornton, himself of English birth. 
A neighbor having warned him at his home that his 
office was in danger, he mounted his horse and gal- 
loped to the spot, where he arrived just in time to 
see a squad of soldiers training a field-piece upon the 
building. Leaping from the saddle and dramatically 
covering the muzzle of the gun with his body, he re- 
minded the artillerists that the inventions they pur- 
posed destroying were monuments of human progress 
which belonged to the whole civilized world, and 

[i6] 



A Capital Made to Order 

denounced such vandalism as a disgrace to the British 
uniform. His boldness had its effect, and the Patent 
Office was spared. Another check came, in the form 
of an accident of poetic justice, at Greenleaf's Point, 
the present site of the Army War College. This place 
had been used as an arsenal by the defenders of the city, 
who, before deserting it, had secreted all their surplus 
gunpowder in a dry well in the midst of the grounds. 
A body of British troops undertook to destroy the 
American cannon they found there by firing one gun 
directly into another, when a fragment of burning 
wadding was blown into the well, causing an explosion 
that killed twelve and wounded more than thirty of 
the party. 

President Madison, who had been at Bladensburg 
personally superintending the placing of our troops, 
hastened southward when the rout began, and took 
refuge among the hills of northern Virginia. There 
he was presently joined by his wife, and both reniained 
in seclusion till they received word that the British 
had marched away. This message was preceded by 
the news that the President's House had been burned, 
with all its contents except a few portable articles 
which could be gathered and put out of harm's reach 
at an hour's notice. The property destroyed with 
absolute wantonness in various parts of the city 

[171 



Walks About Washington 

aggregated In value between two and three million 
dollars — a heavy loss for a government which was 
just managing to stagger along with its legitimate 
burdens, and in a capital that could barely be kept 
from collapse under the most favoring conditions. It 
is not wonderful that the British press was almost a 
unit in condemning Cockburn's vandalism, the Lon- 
don Statesman saying: "Willingly would we throw a 
veil of oblivion over the transactions at Washington ; 
the Cossacks spared Paris, but we spared not the capi- 
tal of America!" And the Annual Register: "The 
extent of the devastation practised by the victors 
brought a heavy censure upon the British character, 
not only in America, but on the Continent of Europe.'^ 
The restoration of the President's House alone, in- 
cluding the repainting of its outside surface to remove 
the scars of the fire, consumed four years, in the course 
of which President Madison made way for his suc- 
cessor, Monroe, and the building had fastened to it, 
from its freshened color, the title it has worn in popu- 
lar speech from that day to this. 

-- It was a sorry-looking Washington to which the 
Madisons came back. Blackened ruins were every- 
where ; placards posted here and there denounced 
the President as the author of the city's misfortunes ; 
mournful streams of women, children, old men, and 

[i8] 



George Washington Tavern, Bladenshurg 



A Capital Made to Order 

shamefaced stragglers from the defensive force, trickled 
in from the woods in the suburban country where they 
had been hiding since the battle ; the streets were 
strewn with the wreckage of a cyclone which had swept 
the valley almost simultaneously with the hostile 
troops, unroofing houses, uprooting trees, demolish- 
ing chimneys, and generally supplementing the disas- 
ters of warfare. Indeed, almost the only potentiality 
of evil that had not come to pass was an uprising of 
the slaves, which had been widely feared, as some of 
the restless spirits among them had been overheard 
counseling their fellows to join the British in looting 
the city and then make a break for freedom. The 
Madisons, after a brief visit with friends, rented the 
Octagon house at the corner of New York Avenue 
and Eighteenth Street, now the headquarters of the 
American Institute of Architects. It was here that 
President Madison signed the treaty of Ghent, bind- 
ing Great Britain and the United States to a peace 
which has remained for a whole century unbroken. 
Here, too, Dolly Madison held her republican court, 
the most famous since Martha Washington's in New 
York, and far eclipsing that in splendor. 
— ^ To provide a meeting-place for Congress till the 
Capitol could be occupied once more, a building which 
stood at the corner of F and Seventh Streets was made 

[19] 



Walks About Washington 

over for the purpose. It proved so uncomfortable, 
however, as to revive with increased zest the discus- 
sion whether, in view of the spread of population 
through the newly opened West, it would not be wiser 
to remove the seat of government to some fairly acces- 
sible point in that part of the country. The agitation 
alarmed the more important property-owners in Wash- 
ington, who, in order to head it off before it had gone 
too far, hastily organized a company to put up a tem- 
porary but better equipped substitute for the Capitol. 
They chose a site a few hundred yards to the eastward 
of the burned edifice, and there built a long house which 
is still standing, though now divided into dwellings. 
The stratagem accomplished its aim, and Congress 
stayed in its improvised domicile till 1819. This 
occupancy gave the building the title, "the Old Capi- 
tol, " that clings to it to-day in spite of the changes it 
has undergone in the interval. 

Washington was early supplied with a good general 
newspaper in the National Intelligencer^ and the social 
side of life presently found a weekly interpreter in The 
Huntress^ edited by Mrs. Ann Royall, whose person- 
ality was so aggressive that John Quincy Adams de- 
scribed her as going about "like a virago-errant in 
enchanted armor." She said so much, also, in dis- 
paragement of some of her neighbors, that she was 

[20] 



A Capital Made to Order 

indicted by the grand jury as a common scold and 
threatened with a ducking in accordance with an old 
English law in force in the District. But the dissemi- 
nators of information to whose coming the citizens 
looked forward more eagerly than to any printed 
sheet, were two men who made their rounds daily on 
horseback among the homes of the well-to-do. One 
was the postman, delivering the mails that came in 
by stage-coach from the outer world ; the other was 
the barber, who, like an endless-chain letter, picked up 
the latest goss-ip at every house he visited, and left in 
exchange all the items he had picked up at previous 
stopping-places. 
V\, During the next generation Washington saw, it is 
safe to say, more of the ups and downs of fortune than 
any other American city. The reasons were mani- 
fold. For one thing, the larger part of its population 
consisted of persons whose permanent ties were else- 
where. As federal officeholders they were residents 
of Washington, but they retained their citizenship in 
the places from which they had been drawn. Under 
the Constitution, moreover. Congress exercised su- 
preme authority in the District of Columbia, and 
every member of Congress had the interests of his 
home constituency more at heart than those of the 
people who were his neighbors for only a few months 

[21] 



Walks About Washington 

at a time. Nevertheless, the population of the capital, 
which, when it rose from its ashes, numbered between 
eight and nine thousand, more than doubled within 
the next twenty years. Then came ten years of great 
uncertainty, during which occurred the overwhelming 
business panic of 1837, that set awry nearly everything 
in America, and for this period the increase averaged 
only about five hundred souls annually. But another 
twenty years of forward movement brought the total 
up to a little more than sixty thousand. 

In the meantime many things had happened, cal- 
culated to attract public attention generally to Wash- 
ington. President Monroe had proclaimed his famous 
doctrine, warning Europe to keep its hands off this 
hemisphere. President Jackson had made his fight 
upon the United States Bank and won it, changing 
the whole financial outlook of the country. The 
Capitol had been enlarged, and several new Govern- 
ment buildings started ; the Smithsonian Institution 
had begun to make its mark in the scientific world, 
and the Washington Monument had risen nearly two 
hundred feet into the air. The long-threatened war 
with Mexico had come and gone, adding a rich area 
to our public domain. Steamships had crowded sail- 
ing vessels off the highways of commerce and become 
the main dependence of the Yankee navy. The Bal- 

[22] 



A Capital Made to Order 

timore and Ohio Railway, the first successful experi- 
ment in its field, had brought what we now call the 
Middle West, with its grain and minerals, to within 
a day's journey of the capital, and this pioneer enter- 
prise had been followed by the opening of other rail 
facilities. The Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act had been passed, slavery had been 
abolished in the District of Columbia, the Underground 
Railroad had begun to haul its daily consignment of 
runaway negroes across the Canada border, the Su- 
preme Court had rendered the Dred Scott decision, 
and John Brown had led his raid in the mountain 
country scarcely fifty miles from where the Court 
was sitting. Letter postage, anywhere east of the 
Mississippi River, had come down to a three-cent unit. 
The first telegraph message had been transmitted over 
a wire connecting Baltimore with Washington, and 
out of this small beginning had presently been devel- 
oped a network of electric communication covering all 
our more thickly populated territory; while experi- 
menters with a submarine line had effected an exchange 
of messages between England and the United States 
which proved the practicability of their enterprise. Last 
but not least, royalty had smiled upon us in the person 
of the Prince of Wales, who had passed some days as 
the guest of President Buchanan at the White House. 

[23] 



Walks About Washington 

Had Washington been situated elsewhere than on 
the border Hne between two sections, neither of which 
felt any pride in its success, or had it been governed by 
executives whose records were to be made or marred 
by the faithfulness with which they turned every op- 
portunity to account for its welfare and reputation, 
we should probably have seen the capital beginning 
then its career as the model city of the new world. 
Instead, the dependence of its people, at every stage, on 
the favor of what was practically an alien governing 
body, bore natural fruit in a feeble community spirit. 

By i860 Washington had reached the middle of its 
Slough of Despond. Not a street was paved except 
for a patch here and there, and Pennsylvania Avenue 
was the only one lighted after nightfall. Pigs roamed 
through the less pretentious highways as freely as 
dogs. There was not a sewer anywhere, a shallow, 
uncovered stream carrying off the common refuse to 
the Potomac, which was held in its channel only by- 
raw earthen bluffs. Wells and springs furnished all 
the water, and the police and fire departments were 
those of a village. The open squares, intended for 
beauty spots, were densely overgrown with weeds. 
Except for an omnibus line to Georgetown, not a pub- 
lic conveyance was running. Such permanent Depart- 
ment buildings as had been started, though ambitious 

[241 



A Capital Made to Order 

in design and suggesting by their outlines a desire 
for something better than had yet been accompHshed, 
had not reached a habitable state. The Capitol was 
in disorder, and still overrun with workmen w^ho had 
been employed in constructing the new wings and were 
preparing to raise the dome ; the White House had 
scarcely a fitter look, with its environment of stables 
and shambling fences and its unkempt grounds. 

Nor was there any prospect of speedy improvement 
in municipal conditions. Every considerable stride 
in that direction would mean largely increased taxa- 
tion, and the bulk of the taxable property had drifted 
into the hands of unprogressive whites and ignorant 
negroes, who were equally unwilling to pay the price. 
Upon this seemingly hopeless chaos descended the 
cloud of civil war. 

It was a black cloud, but it had a sunlit lining. 



[25] 



CHAPTER II 
WAR TIMES AND THEIR SEQUEL 

THREE days after John Brown had been hanged 
for his Harper's Ferry raid, the Thirty-sixth 
Congress convened. Brown's exploit had sent a wave 
of excitement sweeping over the country, and the 
slavery controversy had entered a phase of emotional 
acuteness it had never known before. There was a 
strong Republican plurality in the new House of Repre- 
sentatives, but it was by ho means of one mind, most 
of its members still hoping to avoid any action which 
might precipitate a dismemberment of the Union. 
It took forty-four ballots, covering a period of eight 
weeks, for a combination of Republicans with a few 
outsiders to choose a Speaker, and the wrangling which 
preceded and followed the choice reached at times the 
verge of bloodshed. A large majority of the Repre- 
sentatives from both Northern and Southern constitu- 
encies attended the sessions armed. 

Before the end of June, i860, four Presidential tickets 
were in the field. The Republican ticket was headed 

[261 



Jf^ar Times and their Sequel 

by Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, the Northern Demo- 
cratic ticket by his old rival in State politics, Stephen 
A. Douglas. The Southern Democrats had nominated 
John C, Breckinridge of Kentucky, then Vice-president, 
and what was left of the Whig party had united with 
the peacemakers generally in naming John Bell of 
Tennessee. When Lincoln was elected in November, 
every one knew that a crisis was at hand ; for, although 
opposed to the use of violence for the extinction of 
slavery, he disbelieved utterly in the system, and the 
radical leaders in the South proceeded at once with 
their plans for divorcing the slave States from the free 
States. 

South Carolina led the actual revolt by adopting 
an ordinance of secession and withdrawing her dele- 
gation from Congress. Almost simultaneously she 
sent three commissioners to Washington, "empowered 
to treat with the Government of the United States for 
the delivery of the forts, magazines, lighthouses and 
other real estate within the limits of South Carolina" 
to the State authorities. President Buchanan, fear- 
ing lest any discussion with them might be construed 
as a recognition of their claim to an ambassadorial 
status, referred them to Congress, which met the diffi- 
culty at the threshold by turning their case over to 
a special committee, with the result that their demands 

[27] 



Walks About Washington 

were disregarded. The committee, however, played a 
pretty important part in the activities of the succeed- 
ing winter, for the Union men in its membership 
organized themselves into a sort of subcommittee 
of safety, and opened confidential channels of com- 
munication with men and women all over the city 
who were in a position to tell them promptly what the 
enemies of the Union were planning to do. These 
secret informers included all classes of persons, from 
domestic servants to Cabinet officers. The corre- 
spondence was conducted not through the post-office, 
but by cipher notes hidden in out-of-the-way places, 
where the parties for whom they were intended could 
safely look for them after nightfall. 

The militia and fire departments of the District of 
Columbia were modest afi^airs then, but their members 
were alert to the growing possibilities of trouble. Some 
who were secession sympathizers formed themselves 
into rifle clubs and drilled privately at night ; while 
the Unionists built up a little body of minutemen, 
who elected their own ofiicers and secreted stands of 
arms at the Capitol and other convenient points, so 
that they could respond instantly, wherever they 
chanced to be, to a summons for emergency service. 
Day after day brought its budget of news from the 
South, saddening or thrilling. Thomas and Floyd 

[28] 



War Times and their Sequel 

quitted the Cabinet, Dix became Secretary of the 
Treasury, and Holt Secretary of War. In January, 
1861, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and 
Mississippi seceded, seizing all the forts, vessels, and 
other Government property on which they could lay 
hands ; and Dix put upon the wire his historic despatch 
to his special agent at New Orleans, "If any one 
attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him 
on the spot," but it was intercepted and never reached 
its destination. 

February witnessed the secession of Texas, the 
election of Jefferson Davis as President and Alexander 
H. Stephens as Vice-president of the Confederate 
States of America, and the withdrawal of several 
Senators and Representatives from the United States 
Congress. The only cheering news of the month was 
the refusal of Tennessee and Missouri to secede, 
though both States contained a multitude of citizens 
who would have preferred to do so. Daily the gal- 
leries of Congress were crowded with spectators repre- 
senting all shades of opinion and at times uncontrol- 
lable in their expressions of approval or disapproval. 
When the House voted to submit a Constitutional 
amendment forbidding the interference of Congress 
with slavery or any other State institution, one ele- 
ment in the gallery burst into deafening applause ; the 

[29] 



Walks About W^ashi?igton 

opposing element in the Senate became equally boister- 
ous in applauding a speech by Andrew Johnson, de- 
nouncing as a traitor any man who should fire upon 
the flag or conspire to take over Government property 
for the Confederacy. The difference in the treat- 
ment of the two outbreaks was significant : that in 
the House was merely rebuked in words, but in the 
Senate the gallery was cleared and closed to spectators 
for the rest of the day. 

In fairness it should be said that at this trying 
juncture several men in positions of responsibility, 
who had made no secret of their interest in the South- 
ern cause, acted the honorable part when put to the 
test. Vice-president Breckinridge was credited by 
current gossip with an intention, at the official count 
of the electoral vote, to refuse to declare Lincoln 
elected, or permit a mob to break up the session 
and destroy the authenticated returns. On the con- 
trary, he conducted the count with as much scrupu- 
lousness in every detail as if his heart were in the 
result. Equal praise is due to the chief of the Capitol 
police, who, though bitterly hostile to Mr. Lincoln, 
took all the precautions for his safety on the day of 
inauguration that his best friend could have taken. 

Thus the Buchanan administration went out, and 
the Lincoln administration came in. The persistent 

[301 



Octagon House 



U^ar Times and their Sequel 

warnings of a plot to kill or kidnap the President-elect 
led to the adoption of an extraordinary program for 
bringing him safely to Washington. Under the escort 
of an experienced detective, he made the journey from 
Harrisburg at high speed, in a special train provided 
by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, all the tracks 
having been previously cleared, and the telegraph 
wires cut along the route. Meanwhile, a sensational 
newspaper had published locally a story that Lincoln 
was already in the city, having been smuggled through 
Baltimore in disguise in order to elude the conspira- 
tors who were waiting there to assassinate him. This 
fiction so incensed William H. Seward, who had been 
in Washington preparing for the arrival of his future 
chief, that Lincoln was not allowed to make a toilet 
after his night's journey, but was hurried, all un- 
washed and unshaven, to the Capitol, so that the 
members of Congress could see him and satisfy them- 
selves of the falsity of what they had read. 

His immunity thus far did not quiet the apprehen- 
sions of Lincoln's friends, who took especial pains to 
prevent the interruption of his inauguration at any 
point. A temporary fence was built around the space 
immediately in front of the platform from which his 
address was to be delivered, and an enclosed alley 
of boards was constructed from the place where he 

[31] 



Walks About Washington 

would leave his carriage to the place where he would 
pass into the Capitol. On the morning of the fourth 
of March, armed men in citizen's clothing were sta- 
tioned on the roofs of all the buildings overlooking the 
main east portico, and others on and under its plat- 
form, while yet others mingled with the crowd of thirty 
thousand spectators that early assembled on the plaza. 
Batteries of light artillery were posted in commanding 
positions, with their cannon loaded and prepared to 
sweep any of several converging streets on the ap- 
proach of a mob. Buchanan drove with Lincoln to 
the Capitol, and their carriage was surrounded by a 
hollow square of regular troops, in formation so dense 
that the occupants of the vehicle were scarcely visible 
from the sidewalk. Hannibal Hamlin, the Vice- 
president-elect, walked up from Willard's Hotel, on 
purpose to hear what the people who lined the Avenue 
were saying. Their comments were, as a rule, far 
from friendly to the incoming administration, and 
some were distinctly ominous. 

Lincoln appeared very calm, in spite of the general 
atmosphere of excitement. Buchanan's face was 
graver than usual, and he spoke little during the drive. 
When the party came upon the platform. Senator 
Baker of Oregon stepped forward and said simply, 
"Fellow citizens, I introduce to you Abraham Lin- 

[32] 



War Times and their Sequel 

coin, President-elect of the United States " ; and the 
tall, ungainly hero of the day advanced to the rail. 
He laid his manuscript, to which he had put the finish- 
ing touches at daybreak that morning, upon the little 
desk with his cane for a paper-weight, and looked 
about for somewhere to lay his high silk hat ; Stephen 
A. Douglas, who was sitting near, reached for the hat 
and held it throughout the proceedings. Lincoln, 
after a brief pause, drew from his pocket a pair of steel- 
bowed spectacles, which he adjusted very deliberately, 
and began to read with a seriousness of manner that 
soon quenched all disposition to frivolity in his audi- 
ence. The address was a plea for the preservation 
of that friendship between the North and the South 
which had been hallowed by their united warfare in 
the past against the enemies of their country, and 
ended thus : 

"Though passion may have strained, it must not 
break our bonds of aifection. The mystic cords of 
memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot 
grave to every loving heart and hearthstone all over 
this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, 
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the 
better angels of our nature." 

When the last syllable had passed his lips, he stood 
still a moment, slowly sweeping the multitude with 

[331 



Walks About Washington 

his eyes. Then he bowed to Chief Justice Taney, 
who, in a voice tremulous with emotion, administered 
the oath of office. 

Within six weeks thereafter Fort Sumter had been 
fired upon, and the new President had issued his call 
for seventy-five thousand volunteers to maintain the 
laws of the United States, and summoned Congress to 
meet in extra session on the fourth of July. Almost 
the first thing the Senate did when it came together 
was to expel six of its members who had cast their 
fortunes with the seceding States. Meanwhile, Wash- 
ington had been transformed from an outwardly 
peaceful town into a military camp. A home defense 
corps was hurriedly enlisted by Cassius M. Clay of 
Kentucky and James H. Lane of Kansas, and a guard 
was posted around the White House every night. The 
minutemen were called out repeatedly for special 
service. Once they seized a vessel which was about to 
sail from a Potomac wharf for a southern port, laden 
with munitions of war alleged to have been stolen from 
the Government. Again, they marched to George- 
town and took forcible possession of the flour stored 
in a mill there and reported to them as destined for the 
Confederate army ; this, by commandeering all the 
wagons in the neighborhood, they removed to the 
Capitol and stowed away in the basement rooms. In 

[34I 



W^ar Times and their Sequel 

the streets, all strangers were eyed with suspicion. 
Signals to the police, the home defense corps, and the 
minutemen were conveyed by certain tollings of big 
bells ; and, as every signal meant trouble either present 
or imminent, the townspeople lived continually as if 
on the brink of a volcano. 

Among the earliest State volunteers to reach the 
city were regiments from Massachusetts, New York, 
and Pennsylvania. The Massachusetts Sixth, which 
had been fired on by a mob while passing through Bal- 
timore, was quartered in the Hall of the Senate, and 
the New York Seventh in the Hall of Representatives ; 
while bivouacked in other parts of the same building 
were about five hundred Pennsylvanians and a com- 
pany of United States artillery, for there was general 
expectation of a Confederate attack upon the Capitol. 
The New York Seventy-first was assigned to the 
Washington Navy Yard, so as to be convenient for 
repelling approaches from Alexandria by way of the 
river. 

The first incident of the war in which Alexandria 
figured, however, was not a foray on Washington 
but a tragedy at home. Colonel Ephraim E. Ells- 
worth, who had recruited a regiment of zouaves from 
New York City, came to Washington at its head. 
He was young, handsome, soldierly in bearing, and 

[35] 



Walks About Washington 

full of enthusiasm ; but Mr. Lincoln, though greatly 
attracted to him, felt some misgivings as to his ability 
to control his zouaves, for the New York firemen of 
that period had a reputation for turbulence. Hence, 
when arrangements were made for moving troops into 
Virginia to occupy a region which must be held for the 
defense of the capital, the President consented to let 
Ellsworth's regiment go only on condition that it should 
be instantly disbanded if its members committed any 
breach of discipline. 

At two o'clock on the morning of May 24, 1861, 
the zouaves boarded two Potomac steamboats, which 
before sunrise had dropped down to Alexandria. 
Leaving most of his men on the wharf, Ellsworth started 
with a small squad toward a telegraph office whence 
he could report to Washington by wire. He observed 
a Confederate flag flying from the roof of a hotel known 
as the Marshall House, and, realizing what might 
happen if his men caught sight of it, entered with the 
purpose of directing its removal. Jackson, the land- 
lord, was abed, and the man in charge of the office 
seemed irresponsible, so Ellsworth and his squad 
hauled down the flag themselves. As they were de- 
scending with it, Jackson suddenly emerged from his 
chamber in the second story and leveled a double- 
barreled shotgun at Corporal Brownell, the soldier 

[36] 



War Times and their Sequel 

nearest him. Brownell, with his rifle, struck Jackson's 
gun just as its trigger was pulled, and the shot went 
wild ; but in an instant Jackson had aimed again and 
discharged the contents of the second barrel into Ells- 
worth's breast. The Colonel fell dead, and Brownell, 
firing and using his bayonet almost simultaneously, 
killed Jackson where he stood. 

Except one who had lost his life by an accident, 
Ellsworth was the first Union soldier to fall in the Civil 
War. He was buried from the White House by the 
President's order ; and the news of his death so aroused 
the North that volunteers poured into Washington for 
a time faster than the Government could arm and 
provision them. Mostly they were militia regiments 
which had come on under their own officers. In Wash- 
ington they were united in brigades, with generals of 
some experience in command, and sent into Virginia 
by way of the "Long Bridge," which had its ter- 
minus on the fringe of the Arlington estate ; it was a 
wooden structure, and the troops had to break step in 
crossing it. The first battle between the two armies 
was at a point near Manassas, and took its name. 
Bull Run, from a small stream which, about twenty- 
five miles southwest of Washington, joins the Occoquan 
River. 

So little conception had the people at large of the 

[37] 



Walks About Washington 

actualities of war that many Washingtonians and 
tourists, of all ages and sexes, drove down in carriages 
to watch the battle from a safe position on the hillside. 
Fighting began on the morning of Sunday, July 21, 
and the first reports that reached the city described 
everything as going favorably to the Union cause. 
The despatches sent to Northern newspapers all re- 
flected this view, and some went pretty elaborately 
into detail concerning incidents on various parts of 
the field. But suddenly the tide turned, and with a 
panicky force which started the whole body of Federal 
troops on a pell-mell rush for Washington. The 
light-hearted spectators ran, too, often impeding the 
retreat of the soldiers by getting their carriages wedged 
together on a bridge or a narrow road, while the air 
shook with mingled profanity and prayers, punctuated 
with hysterics. Not a few of the carriage folk, as 
night drew near, became so terrified that they cut 
their harness and rode their horses bareback, two 
sometimes clinging to one animal. The Confederates, 
discovering the rout, were as much surprised as the 
Federals. They set out to follow their foes, but, not 
fully grasping the real conditions, stopped about 
fifteen miles short of Washington and waited for 
morning, thus giving the fugitive army a chance 
to recover from its first demoralization. Had they 

[38] 



JVar Times and their Sequel 

pressed on, they might have taken possession of the 
capital that night, captured the stored munitions, and 
looted the Treasury ; and the record of the next four 
years must have been written in a different vein. 

Meanwhile, the true story had been brought in by 
the fleeing non-combatants, and the Associated Press 
attempted to send out a correction of first reports, but 
discovered too late that the Government had seized 
all the telegraph lines and established a temporary 
censorship, postponing any further dissemination of 
news. As far as known, only one prominent paper in 
the North was able to describe the disaster in its 
Monday morning's issue. That was a Philadelphia 
journal, whose correspondent had taken to his heels 
as soon as the panic began. By the time he reached 
Washington, he was so convinced that the Confed- 
erates were going to capture the city at once, that he 
boarded a train which was just pulling out for Phil- 
adelphia, and at his desk in his home ofhce dictated 
his observations of the battle and the stampede. 

The President, having received only cheering bulle- 
tins in the earlier part of Sunday, went out for his 
usual drive in the cool of the afternoon. On his return, 
about half-past six o'clock, he found awaiting him a 
request to come Immediately to General Scott's room 
at the War Department. All his Cabinet had gath- 

[39l 



Walks About Washington 

ered there, and his hurried consultation with them 
resulted in messages directing various movements of 
troops in the field, and appeals to the Governors of 
the loyal States for more men. When he came back 
to his office, he threw himself upon a lounge, where he 
spent the night, not in sleep, but in listening to, and 
closely catechising, parties of civilians who had made 
their way in from Manassas and had hastened to the 
White House to pour their disjointed narratives into 
his ear. By daylight the streets of Washington pre- 
sented a pitiful spectacle. Ordinary business was 
almost at a standstill ; excited citizens were gathered in 
knots at every corner ; and a multitude of disheart- 
ened soldiers, lacking leaders and organization, not 
knowing where to look for their next orders and think- 
ing with dread of the effect the bad news would have 
upon their friends at home, were wandering aimlessly 
about. The President, after twenty-four hours of 
anxiety, was greatly relieved when the responses from 
the Northern States began to reach him, showing 
that the shock had not broken the faith of the people 
but had awakened them to the realities of the situation. 
This change was reflected in the Cabinet councils, too, 
where a sudden revision of opinion was observed on 
the part of those members who had fancied that the 
war would be merely a three months' holiday — a 

[40] 



W^ar Times and their Sequel 

triumphal march of a Northern army from Mason and 
Dixon's line to the Gulf of Mexico. 

This is not a history of the civil conflict ; its be- 
ginnings have been thus outlined only because they 
made so deep an impress on the future of Washington, 
which, from being generally regarded by the Ameri- 
can people with comparative indifference, had become 
a center of interest for all the world. The city was not 
again seriously threatened with capture till July, 
1864, when the Confederate General, Jubal A. Early, 
with a corps of seasoned soldiers, had worked his way 
around so as to descend upon it from the north. 
The news of his approach, spreading through the 
community, did not cause the consternation which 
might have been expected in view of the slight defen- 
sive preparation that had been made in the menaced 
quarter. Requisitions were sent to the army in 
Northern Virginia for such troops as could be spared. 
Wounded and discharged Union veterans shouldered 
their guns once more. The male nurses in the hospi- 
tals were drafted for active duty. A troop of cavalry 
was recruited among the civilian teamsters at work 
in the city. From all the executive Departments the 
able-bodied clerks were called out, armed with rifles 
or muskets as far as possible, and for the rest with 
pistols, old cutlasses, axes, shovels, and whatever 

[411 



Walks About Washington 

other implements might be turned to emergency use, 
and ranged up on the sidewalks for elementary instruc- 
tion and drill. Those who were least strong or most 
poorly armed were organized into a home-guard, to 
act as a last reserve if the Confederates succeeded in 
piercing a line of earthworks thrown out north of the 
city. Some of these fortifications can still be identi- 
fied, though worn away by a half-century's exposure 
to a variable climate, overgrown with trees and vines, 
and at intervals used as building sites. The most 
interesting of the chain is Fort Stevens, near the 
present Seventh Street Road, for there President Lin- 
coln stood for hours under fire, refusing to go home 
as long as there seemed a chance that his presence could 
lend any inspiration to the men. The invading force 
was repulsed after a two days' effort to break through, 
and Washington breathed freely once more. 

We come now to the concluding stage of the great 
struggle. Mr. Lincoln was reelected in November, 
1864, and inaugurated on the fourth of March, 1865, 
making the chief theme of his address a plea for gen- 
erous treatment of the South. Within a month Rich- 
mond fell, and five days after that General Lee sur- 
rendered his army. There was great rejoicing in 
Washington over both these portents of peace, and 
parties of men and women paraded the streets after 

[42] 



Union Engine House of 1815 



War Times and their Sequel 

nightfall, singing patriotic songs in front of the 
dwellings of prominent Government officers. On the 
night of April 1 1 a great crowd gathered in the White 
House yard, loudly cheering the President and calling 
for a speech. Having been notified in advance, he 
had jotted down a few remarks which he now read 
from manuscript. This memory of him we shall take 
away with us, as he stood framed in an open window, 
with one of his secretaries at his side holding a lighted 
candle for him to see by, and his little son Tad taking 
from his hand the pages of manuscript, one by one, 
as he finished reading them, while the rest of his 
family, with radiant faces, were grouped where they 
could overlook the scene. 

Three nights later, almost at the same hour, Booth's 
bullet laid the good man low in his box at Ford's 
Theater ; and in a little back hall bedroom of the 
house across the street to which he was carried, he 
breathed his last at an early hour on the following 
morning. Simultaneously with the shooting of Mr. 
Lincoln, an attempt was made to kill Secretary Seward, 
and the detectives unearthed evidence of a wide 
conspiracy, which contemplated a simultaneous mur- 
der of the President, the Vice-president, all the Cabi- 
net, and General Grant. The conspirators were soon 
tracked. Booth was shot in a Virginia barn in which 

[43] 



Walks About Washi?igton 

he had taken refuge from his pursuers ; four others 
were tried by a mihtary commission and hanged. 

Andrew Johnson, the Vice-president, was not a tact- 
ful man, and had already drawn upon himself the 
enmity of the radical wing of his party in Congress, 
which was intensified by his first acts as President, 
foreshadowing a considerate policy toward the South. 
A tiresome petty warfare set in, Johnson vetoing bill 
after bill, only to see it repassed over his veto. Of 
the members of the Lincoln Cabinet he had retained, 
Secretary Stanton was the one with whom he had most 
friction, and in August, 1867, he called for Stanton's 
resignation, designating General Grant to manage the 
War Department temporarily. On Stanton's refusal to 
resign, Johnson suspended him, and Grant took over 
the Department and held it till the Senate adopted 
a resolution declaring its non-concurrence in Stanton's 
suspension. Then Grant stepped out, and Stanton 
returned to duty. Johnson suspended him again, 
this time designating General Lorenzo Thomas to act 
in his stead. Matters had now reached a climax, 
and the House in 1868 impeached the President. His 
trial by the Senate consumed nearly two months and 
ended in a failure to convict. In view of this defeat, 
Stanton resigned, and from that time till the close of 
his term President Johnson continued his quarrel 

[44] 



War Times and their Sequel 

with the opponents of his poHcy, celebrating his last 
Christmas in the White House by proclaiming a gen- 
eral pardon and amnesty, so framed as to include all 
grades of political offenders. 

Johnson was President when the enlargement of 
the Capitol building was finished, including the rear- 
ing of the present dome. While the alterations were 
in progress, the grand two days' parade of the victo- 
rious armies took place on Pennsylvania Avenue, the 
President reviewing it as it passed the White House. 
General Grant was elected by the Republicans to suc- 
ceed Johnson, taking office in March, 1869. During 
the next sixteen years, divided between his two terms 
and the administrations of Hayes, Garfield, and 
Arthur, Washington almost doubled in population. 
While Grant was President, it was so constantly in 
the public eye that many rich men discerned its future 
possibilities and invested in real estate there. Army 
and navy officers, retired from active duty, found it 
pleasant to settle down where they would be most 
likely to meet their old comrades. A few scholars 
drifted in, so as to have easy access to the Govern- 
ment libraries and records. Thus, in both a material 
and a social way, Washington took a strong upward 
start. 

For the esthetic side of the general change, less can 

[45] 



Walks About Washington 

be said in praise. Most of the dwellings built during 
this era can still be distinguished by their gratuitous 
ugliness. The parks became strewn with flower-beds 
of fantastic shape, overrun by a riot of inharmonious 
colors. Statues sprang up like mushrooms, unre- 
lated in size or style or any other quality. Alterations 
of street grades left little houses perched on bluffs 
and leaning against big neighbors built at the new 
level, or sunk in dingy pits. All this contributed to 
give the city an unfinished look, like that of a child 
growing out of its small clothes. Over the whole pro- 
cess of transformation loomed its master figure, Alex- 
ander R. Shepherd. 

No man of his day, unless it were Grant himself, 
endured more wholesale denunciation or found more 
valiant defenders than he. Like Grant, who believed 
in him thoroughly, he had an iron will which treated 
all obstacles as negligible when he had set himself 
to accomplish a certain end. As a plumber by trade 
and a very competent one, he had accumulated a for- 
tune before middle life. Early In his business career 
he had made up his mind that Washington's failure 
to fulfil L'Enfant's ideal of a beautiful capital was due 
to the sluggishness which pervaded it, and this he 
resolved to dispel. Grant listened to his projects 
and encouraged them. The first step was to abolish 

[46] 



War Times and their Sequel 

the existing form of municipal government and to sub- 
stitute a Territorial form, with a Governor and a Board 
of Public Works. Shepherd was made vice-president 
of the Board and virtually its dictator. 
^., What he had to face in his effort to launch the city 
afresh can hardly be conceived by an observer of to- 
day. Although ten years had elapsed since the out- 
break of the great war of which Washington was the 
focal center, local conditions had improved but slightly 
upon those described toward the close of the previous 
chapter. The road-bed of Pennsylvania Avenue had 
received a pavement of wood, which was fast going to 
pieces. A single square in Vermont Avenue was 
surfaced with a coal-tar product that had proved its 
unfitness. A few other streets had been spread with 
a thick coat of gravel, which, as it was gradually 
ground down, filled the air with fine grit whenever the 
wind blew. The rest of the highways were either 
paved with cobblestones or left in their primitive dirt, 
which became nearly impassable in very wet weather 
for mud, and in very dry weather for dust. It was not 
uncommon for a heavy vehicle like a fire-engine to 
get stalled when it most needed to hurry, and to avoid 
this contingency the engines sometimes ran over the 
sidewalk. In the northwestern quarter, now so at- 
tractive, the marshes were undrained, and the people 

[471 



Walks About Washingtofi 

forced to live there suffered tortures from chills and 
fever. There was no efficient system of scavenging, 
but swine were kept in back yards of dwellings to de- 
vour the kitchen refuse. Poultry and cattle roamed 
freely about the vacant lots in thinly settled neigh- 
borhoods. There were several open sewers ; and the 
street sweepings, including offal of a highly offensive 
sort, were dumped on the common south of Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue and strewn over the plots set apart for 
lawns. 

Because Shepherd foresaw the hostility he would 
excite by his program of reforms, and that what he 
did must therefore be done quickly, he crowded into 
three years what might well have consumed twenty. 
To save time and cut red tape, he awarded contracts 
to friends whom he believed to be as much in earnest 
as he was — a practice which of course laid him open 
to accusations of favoritism ; he experimented with 
novel materials and methods, many of which proved 
ill-adapted to his needs ; and his expenditures reached 
figures which surprised even him when he found lei- 
sure to foot up his debit page. But he shirked nothing 
because of the danger or trouble it might involve for 
himself, and his opponents had to lie awake nights to 
outwit him. 

For instance, there stood on the present site of the 

[48] 



W^ar Times a?id their Sequel 

Public Library in Mount Vernon Square a ramshackle 
old market building, the owners of which had con- 
trived so to intrench themselves behind legal techni- 
calities that they could not be ousted by any ordinary 
process. One evening, after the courts were closed, a 
platoon of brawny laborers was marched up to the 
building, armed with battering-rams, axes, and sledge- 
hammers, and, before proprietors or tenants could 
hunt up a judge to interfere, the party had reduced the 
market to kindling wood and prepared the ground 
for conversion into a public park. Again, when the 
time came to improve the lower end of Pennsylvania 
Avenue, a railroad crossing stood in the way. It had 
been laid during the war, with no legal warrant but 
as a temporary military necessity, and the company 
had repeatedly refused to remove it. So at one o'clock 
one Sunday morning, when injunctions were out of 
the question. Shepherd brought down a gang of trusty 
men and proceeded to tear up the rails, which could 
never thereafter be replaced. 

The boldness of this performance so stirred the ad- 
miration of John W. Garrett, one of the most power- 
ful railway magnates of the day, that he offered Shep- 
herd a vice-presidency of the Baltimore and Ohio 
Company. But Shepherd was not to be lured away. 
He was pfomoted by Grant from the vice-presidency of 

[491 



Walks About Washi?igto?i 

the Board of Public Works to the Governorship of the 
District, a move which, though flattering, made him 
all the more shining a mark for attack ; and a group of 
large landowners, shuddering at the prospect of fur- 
ther increases in taxation, induced Congress to reor- 
ganize the local government, wiping out entirely the 
Territorial system and popular suffrage, and putting 
the administration of affairs into the hands of three 
Commissioners to be appointed for limited terms by 
the President. This plan has remained substantially 
unchanged for more than forty years, to the satis- 
faction of the citizens who have most at stake in the 
welfare of the city. 

Having entered office rich at the age of thirty, Shep- J 
herd quitted it at thirty-three so poor that he had to/ 
begin life anew in the Mexican mining country. He 
left as his monument a record expenditure of twenty- 
six million dollars, about half that amount remaining 
as a bonded debt ; many miles of newly opened or 
extended streets ; a splendid achievement in shade- 
tree installation and parking improvement ; modern 
water, sanitation, and lighting plants ; and, above 
all, an awakened popular spirit as to civic advance- 
ment. Albeit his ways of working out his plans often 
were so crude as to shock the sense of quieter people 
and not to be commended as a continuing force for 

[50] 



On the Ruins of Fort Stevens 



War Times and their Sequel 

good, they served their time, which needed the appli- 
cation of a crowbar rather than a cambric needle. 
\\ True to his human type. Shepherd was an odd mix- 
ture of incongruities. He poured out pubHc funds 
Hke water, yet profited never a cent himself. In his 
own fashion he was pious, yet he could swear like a 
trooper when aroused, and once halted in the midst 
of family prayers to order a servant to "drive that 
damned cow out of the rose-bushes!" He was over- 
heard, after hurling imprecations at some contractor 
who had mishandled a job, murmuring a prayer to the 
Almighty to forgive and forget his momentary loss of 
temper. A l a<jy who once engaged hi m as a plumber v 
to ha ng a chandelier in her parlor noticed that it swayed 
under her touch, and sent for him again to make sure 
that it would not fall upon the heads of her guests. 
His answer was to mount a chair on one side of the 
room, pull the chandelier toward him till he could 
grasp it with both hands, jump off, and swing his 
whole weight of two hundred and twenty-five pounds 
across to a chair on the opposite side. This exhibi- 
tion of his confidence in his work completely restored 
hers. 

Little more need be told here. The sodden soil 
plowed up by Shepherd was gradually harrowed and 
seeded, watched and watered, till it brought forth a 

[51] 



Walks About Washington 

new city, which under later administrations, in spite of 
many vicissitudes, has prospered in the main. Presi- 
dents Cleveland, Harrison, and McKinley took an 
interest in it which, while kindly, had some of the 
detached quality of their interest in any of the States 
or Territories ; under them, however, the beautiful 
Rock Creek National Park and its neighbor the "Zoo" 
were planned and largely developed, and the pleasure- 
ground and suburban expansion programs received 
a considerable impetus. President Roosevelt felt a 
lively sense of the importance of the city as the capi- 
tal of a great nation. It was in his time that the 
White House underwent its restoration, and the L'En- 
fant plan generally was revived as a standard. He 
was responsible, also, for attracting to Washington, 
as permanent residents, many literary and scientific 
workers whom it had formerly welcomed only as vis- 
itors, and the foundation of the Carnegie Institution 
went far to make this period notable in local annals. 
Mr. Taft's interest took more the neighborly bent, as 
if Washington were his home. He bore an active part 
in the popular movements for beautifying the city, 
not so much because it was a capital, as because he 
wished to have a hand in the civic enterprises of his 
fellow townsmen. 

President Wilson's attitude has not thus far been 

[52] 



Jf^a?^ Times and their Sequel 

so clearly defined as that of his recent predecessors. 
Other pressing public concerns have left him scant 
time for looking into municipal improvement projects. 
Mrs. Wilson, however, gave them much attention ; 
and a hope expressed during her last illness so touched 
the heart of Congress as to bring about the enactment 
of some long-delayed legislation to abate the use of 
unwholesome alleys for the tenements of the poor. 



[S3l 



CHAPTER III 

"ON THE HILL" 

IN the ordinary conversation of Washington, one 
rarely hears Congress mentioned by name. The 
respective functions of its two chambers are so gen- 
erally understood that it is common to distinguish 
between them : the Senate yesterday did so-and-so ; 
something is about to occur in the House of Repre- 
sentatives. In speaking of the lawmakers collectively, 
the familiar phrase is "the gentlemen on the hill." 
Washington has several hills, but "the" hill is by uni- 
versal consent the one on which the Capitol stands. 
To the visitor who knows the city only in its pres- 
ent aspect, the choice of this hill for the monumental 
building now crowning it seems most natural. This 
is not, however, the place originally considered for 
the purpose. James Madison favored Shuter's Hill, 
an eminence a little west of Alexandria, now embraced 
in the tract set apart for George Washington Park. 
Thomas Jefferson supported Madison in this prefer- 
ence ; but President Washington, feeling that Virginia 

[54] 



<'0n the Hiir' 

had already had her full share of the honors in launch- 
ing the new republic, insisted that the most important 
architecture at the seat of government should stand 
on the Maryland side of the Potomac. His view 
prevailed ; and, when the sites of the principal public 
buildings were marked on L'Enfant's plan of the city, 
that selected for the Capitol was the elevation which, 
besides being fairly central, commanded in its outlook, 
and was commanded by, the greatest area of country 
on both sides of the river. 

Like almost everything else architectural in Wash- 
ington, the Capitol is a pile of gradual growth, subjected 
to many changes of detail in the plans. Sketches were 
submitted in competition for a prize ; the two competi- 
tors who came nearest to meeting the requirements, 
though adopted citizens of the United States, were 
respectively of French and English birth ; and the 
drawings finally evolved from the general scheme of 
the one modified by the more acceptable ideas of the 
other were turned over to an Irishman to perfect and 
carry out. Most of the credit belongs, undoubtedly, 
to Doctor William Thornton, a draftsman by pro- 
fession, who afterward became Superintendent of 
Patents. The material used was freestone from a 
neighboring quarry. Only the north or Senate end 
was far enough advanced by the autumn of 1800 to 

[55] 



W^alks About Washington 

enable Congress to hold its short session there, and the 
disputes which arose over the succeeding stages of the 
work led President JeflFerson to call in Benjamin H. 
Latrobe of Richmond, the first architect of already 
established rank who had had anything to do with it. 
Under his direction, the south end was made habit- 
able by 1811 ; and the House of Representatives, which 
till then had been uncomfortably quartered in such odd 
places as it could find, took possession. There was no 
central structure connecting the Senate and House 
ends, but a roofed wooden passageway led from the 
one to the other. In this condition was the Capitol 
when, in 18 14, the British invaders burned all of it 
that was burnable. 

The heavier masonry, of course, was unaffected by 
the fire except for the need of a little patchwork here 
and there ; but in his task of restoration Mr. Latrobe 
found himself so embarrassed by dissensions between 
the dignitaries who gave him his orders that after 
three vexatious years he resigned, and the celebrated 
Charles Bulfinch of Boston took his place. In 1830 
Mr. Bulfinch pronounced the building finished and 
returned home, and for twenty years it remained sub- 
stantially as he left it. Then, the needs of Congress 
having outgrown the space at their disposal, Thomas 
U. Walter of Philadelphia was ordered to prepare plans 

[56] 



^'On the Hiir 

for an enlargement, and he was far-sighted enough 
to make the extension the vehicle for some other 
improvements. The great wings attached to the 
northern and southern extremities were built of white 
marble, which has rendered imperative the frequent 
repainting of the old freestone surfaces to match ; the 
dome was raised proportionally ; and additions made, 
then and since, to the surrounding grounds, have given 
the building an appropriate setting and vastly enhanced 
its beauty of approach. 

This is, in brief, the story of the Capitol as we find 
it to-day. A stroll through it will call up other mem- 
ories. As you look at the building from the east, you 
will be struck by the difference in tint between the 
painted main structure and the two marble wings. 
Imagine the wings cut off and the dome reduced to 
about half its present height and ended abruptly in 
a flat top, and you have in your mind's eye a picture 
of the Capitol as Bulfinch left it, and as it remained 
till shortly before the Civil War. Its most conspicu- 
ous feature now is its towering dome, surmounted by 
a bronze allegorical figure of American Freedom. As 
the sculptor Crawford originally modeled the image, its 
head was crowned with the conventional liberty-cap ; 
but Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, objected 
to this on the ground that it was the sign of a freed 

[57] 



Walks About Washington 

slave, whereas Americans were born free. The cap 
was therefore discarded in favor of the present helmet 
of eagle feathers. 

Filling the pediment over the main portico is a bit 
of sculpture which enjoys the distinction of having 
been designed by John Quincy Adams, because he could 
not find an artist who could draw him what he wished. 
It consists of three figures : the Genius of America in 
the center and Hope and Justice on either side, Jus- 
tice appearing without her customary blindfold. 
Flanking the main staircase are two groups of stat- 
uary. That on our left is called "The Discovery" 
— Columbus holding aloft a globe, while an Indian 
woman crouches at his feet. It was done by the Ital- 
ian sculptor Persico, who copied Columbus's armor 
from the last suit actually worn by him. And now 
comes a bit of politics ; for Congress, having awarded 
this work to a foreigner, was besieged by a demand 
that the next order be given to an American, and ac- 
cordingly engaged Horatio Greenough to produce 
"The Rescue," which stands on our right. It repre- 
sents a frontiersman saving his wife and child from 
capture by an Indian. 

The portico has an historic association with another 
President besides Adams, for it was here that an 
attempt was made upon the life of Andrew Jackson. 

[58] 



^'On the Hiir' 

At the close of a funeral service In the House of Rep- 
resentatives, he had just passed out of the rotunda to 
descend the steps, when a demented mechanic named 
Lawrence sprang from a place of hiding, aimed a 
pistol at him, and pulled the trigger. As they were 
less than ten feet apart, the President was saved only 
by the failure of the powder to explode. Lawrence 
instantly dropped the useless pistol and tried an- 
other, with like effect. Jackson never could be talked 
out of the idea that Lawrence was the tool of political 
conspirators who wished to put some one else In his 
place as President. 
^^ We enter the building between the bronze doors 
designed by Randolph Rogers, commonly called the 
"Columbus doors" because they tell, in a series of 
reliefs, the life story of the discoverer. In the rotunda, 
the center of the building, we find ourselves surrounded 
by paintings and sculpture dealing with historical 
subjects. Hung at even Intervals are eight large 
canvases, of which four are by John Trumbull, a por- 
trait painter who was also an officer of the patriot 
army In the Revolution. For the one representing 
the signing of the Declaration of Independence, old John 
Randolph could find no better designation than "the 
shin piece," because "such a collection of legs never 
before came together in any one picture" ; but a more 

[591 



Walks About Washington 

friendly commentator has discovered by actual count 
that, of the nearly fifty figures, onl}^ ten show either 
legs or feet, the rest being relieved by drapery or deep 
shadows. In another, the "Resignation of General 
Washington," are the figures of two girls, which have 
given rise to many a discussion among sightseers be- 
cause the pair seem to have five hands between them ; 
I shall not attempt to solve the problem. 

The paintings of the "Landing of Columbus," 
"Discovery of the Mississippi," "Baptism of Poca- 
hontas," and "Embarkation of the Pilgrims" are from 
the brushes of Vanderlyn, Powell, Chapman, and Weir 
respectively. Their subjects permit of picturesque 
costumes and dramatic groupings which Trumbull 
could not use. But whatever his limitations, we owe 
to him, probably more than to any other one man, the 
rotunda as we know it. Bulfinch had under considera- 
tion various schemes of treatment for the center of 
the building, but Trumbull's foremost thought was of 
a good light for his pictures ; and, as he was a valued 
friend of the architect, the pertinacity with which he 
urged this design won the day. 

Four doors pierce the circular chamber, and over 
each is a rectangle of sculpture in high relief. As works 
of art, the quartet are little short of execrable, but 
as milestones on the path of esthetic development 

[60] 



<<0n the Hiir 

in America they have a charm of their own. All 
were the work of Italian sculptors, whose acquaintance 
with our domestic history and concerns was presump- 
tively scant ; and when the tablet showing William 
Penn negotiating his treaty with the Indians was first 
exhibited to the public, the head of the gentle Quaker 
was adorned with a cocked hat and military queue. 
It was necessary, therefore, to decapitate him and set 
upon his shoulders the head he now wears. All four 
reliefs deal with our aboriginal problem. In one, the 
Indians are welcoming the Pilgrim Fathers with a 
gift of corn ; in another, they are conveying to Penn 
the land on which Philadelphia now stands ; in a third, 
Pocahontas is saving the life of Captain John Smith ; 
while in the fourth, Caucasian civilization, personified 
in Daniel Boone, has already killed one Indian and is 
engaged in bloody combat with a second. The series 
drew from an old chief the comment that they told 
the true story of the way the white race had repaid the 
hospitality of the red race by exterminating it ; and 
another observer, pointing to the huddled-up body 
of the fallen Indian under Boone's foot, remarked : 
"The white man has not left the Indian land enough 
even to die on !" 

^ Running all around the circular wall and immediately 
under the dome opening, we note an unfinished frieze, 

[6i] 



Walks About Washington 

so done in neutral tints as to convey the suggestion 
of relief sculpture, depicting the most notable events 
in the history of America from the landing of Colum- 
bus to the discovery of gold in California. Six of the 
fourteen scenes were painted by Constantino Brumidi, 
and the others after sketches left by him. It was an 
ambitious design, in view of the rapidity with which 
history is made now and the brevity of the space. 
Only a trifiing gap is left for all that has happened in 
the last sixty years or so, and Congress has had more 
than one debate over what ought to be crowded into 
the record of this interval. Among the subjects con- 
sidered have been the emancipation of the slaves, the 
completion of the first transcontinental railroad, and 
the freeing of Cuba ; but the proposal which has met 
with most favor is a symbolic treatment of the Civil 
War, not as a breach between the sections but as the 
cementing of a stronger bond. This was set aside be- 
cause the design outlined was a representation of Grant 
and Lee clasping hands under the Appomattox apple 
tree — the objection being based on the discovery 
that the apple tree existed only in fiction, and that the 
real meeting-place of the two commanders was too 
unromantic for artistic use. 

"^^From the frieze our eyes ascend to the canopy, or 
inner lining of the dome, which hangs above us like an 

[62] 



Survivals from " Before the War ' 



''On the Hiir' 

inverted bowl enclosing an elaborate fresco in colors. 
This, too, is from the brush of Brumidi. Although it 
is ostensibly allegorical, many of its sixty-three human 
faces are recognizable portraits, including those of 
Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Robert Morris, Sam- 
uel F. B. Morse, Robert Fulton, and Thomas U. Wal- 
ter, who was architect of the Capitol while the work 
was in progress. In a group representing War, with 
an armed goddess of liberty for its center, are heads 
resembling those of Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. 
Stephens, Robert E. Lee, and John B. Floyd. Whether 
the likenesses are there by the deliberate intent of the 
artist, or merely by accident, no one will ever know, 
as Brumidi died in 1880. 

The door on our left leads, through a short corridor, 
into what was once the Hall of Representatives. It 
is now known officially as the Hall of Statuary, but to 
irreverent critics as the National Chamber of Horrors, 
because of the varied assortment of marble and bronze 
images collected there. The room is semicircular, 
with a domed ceiling, a great arch and supporting pil- 
lars on its flat side, and a colonnade lining the horse- 
shoe. During the forty years that it was used for legis- 
lative purposes, a rostrum holding the Speaker's table 
and chair filled the arch, and the desks of the Repre- 
sentatives were arranged in concentric curves to face 

[63] 



Walks About Washington 

it. Overlooking the chamber, and following most of 
the rear wall, ran a narrow gallery for visitors who 
did not enjoy the privileges of the floor ; it derived an 
air of comfort from curtains hung between the columns 
of the colonnade and looped back so as to produce the 
effect of a tier of opera-boxes. Stay in the room a 
while, and you will understand why, for many years, 
the complaint of its acoustic properties was so constant, 
and a demand for a better hall so strong : it is a 
wonderful whispering gallery. There are spots in the 
tiled pavement where you can stand and hear the 
slightest sound you make come back from some point 
before or behind you, over your head, or under your 
feet. Go to the place where the semicircle ends on 
one side of the room, and I will go to the correspond- 
ing place on the other side, and, by speaking into the 
vertical fissures between the wall and the pillars at 
the two extremities of the great arch, we can converse 
in the lowest tones with as much ease as if we were 
side by side instead of a hundred feet apart. 

A vivid imagination can people this hall with ghosts. 
Here some of the fiercest forensic battles were fought 
in early days over protective tariffs, internal improve- 
ments, and, above all, negro slavery. Here it was that 
Randolph's piping voice denounced the Northern 
"dough-faces," and here Wilmot launched his historic 

[64] 



''On the Hiir 

proviso. Here Alexander H. Stephens made his last 
effort to resuscitate the moribund Whig party, while 
Abraham Lincoln listened to his argument from a 
seat on the same side of the chamber. Here John 
Quincy Adams drew upon himself the fire of an incensed 
opposition by championing the people's right to peti- 
tion Congress, and here he fell to the floor a dying para- 
lytic. Here John Marshall, the greatest of our Chief 
Justices, administered the oath of office to two early 
Presidents. And here it was that Henry Clay, as 
Speaker, delivered his address of welcome to Lafayette 
as the guest of the nation, and listened with becoming 
gravity to the Marquis's response — which, as it after- 
ward appeared, owed its excellent English to the fact 
that Clay had composed it for the most part himself. 
"^ - The conversion of the hall from its former to its 
present uses was at the instance of the late Senator 
Morrill of Vermont, who procured legislation permitting 
every State in the Union to contribute two statues of 
distinguished citizens to this temple of fame. No 
restriction having been placed on the sizes of the fig- 
ures, one result of his well-meant effort is a grotesque 
array of pigmies and giants, some of the personages 
biggest in life being most diminutive in effigy, while 
others of comparatively insignificant stature are here 
given massive proportions. Most of the notables 

[6s] 



Walks About Washi?igto?i 

thus immortalized are persons with whose names we 
associate a story. Here stand, for example, Ethan 
Allen as he may have looked when demanding the 
surrender of Fort Ticonderoga "in the name of the 
great Jehovah and the Continental Congress" ; Charles 
Carroll, who wrote Carrollton after his name so that 
the servants of the King, when sent to hang him for 
signing the Declaration, would know where to find 
him ; sturdy John Stark, who snapped his fingers at 
Congress and whipped the British at Bennington in 
his own fashion ; Muhlenberg, the patriot parson, 
throwing back his gown at the close of his sermon 
and standing forth as a Continental soldier ; and fiery 
Jim Shields, who once challenged Lincoln to a duel, 
but was laughed out of it when, arriving on the field, 
he found his adversary already there, mowing the tall 
grass with a cutlass to make the fighting easier ! 

Another corridor brings us to the present Hall of 
Representatives, which has been in use since the latter 
part of 1857. It is a spacious rectangular room, 
with a high ceiling chiefly of glass, through which it is 
lighted in the daytime by the sun and after nightfall 
by the modified glow of electric lamps in the attic. 
Its plan is that of an amphitheater, the platform 
occupied by the Speaker being at the lowest level in 
the middle of the long southern side. Facing this- 

[66] 



''On the Hiir 

are the concentric curved benches of the members, 
Formerly the body of the hall was filled with desks 
but, as the membership increased with the population 
of the country, these were found to take up too much 
room, not to mention the temptation they offered for 
letter-writing and other diversions. Back of the 
Speaker's chair hang a full-length portrait of Wash- 
ington by Vanderlyn and one of Lafayette by Ary 
Schaeffer. The Washington is the conventional por- 
trait as far as the waist-line, but the legs were borrowed; 
from a prominent citizen of Maryland, who had a better 
pair than the General, and who consented to pose them 
for the benefit of posterity. 

Now let us go back to the north or Senate wing of 
the building. On our way we swing around a little 
open air- well, through which we look down into the 
corresponding corridor of the basement. The well is 
surrounded by a colonnade supporting the base of a 
circular skylight. The columns are worth noticing, 
because their capitals are of native design, using the 
leaf of the tobacco plant somewhat conventionalized. 
They date from the period when the clerk of the United 
States Supreme Court, whose office is near by, used 
to receive a part of his compensation in tobacco. 

A few steps more bring us to the Court itself, sitting 
in a chamber considerably smaller than the Hall of 

[67] 



Walks About Washington 

Statuary, but laid out on the same plan. This was the 
first legislative chamber ever occupied in the Capitol, 
having been till 1859 the Hall of the Senate. Here 
it was that Thomas Jefferson was twice inaugurated 
as President. Here Daniel Webster pronounced the 
famous "reply to Hayne" which every boy orator 
once learned to spout from the rostrum. Here Preston 
Brooks made his murderous assault upon Charles 
Sumner, and here Henry Clay delivered the farewell 
address which we used to find in all the school readers. 
On the walls of this chamber once hung the life-size oil 
portraits of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, which 
were presented by the Government of France to the 
Government of the United States just after our Revo- 
lution, and which disappeared when the British burned 
the Capitol in 18 14. The room has always suffered 
from the same bad acoustic properties which caused 
the House of Representatives to exchange its old hall 
for its new one ; and it has a similar whispering gallery, 
so that a court officer in one corner can communicate 
with a colleague in the other in a tone so low as to be 
inaudible to any one else. 

Since it took possession here, the Court has rendered 
its legal tender and anti-trust decisions, and a number 
of others of historic importance. In this room sat, 
in 1877, the Electoral Commission which decided that 

[68] 



<'0n the Hiir 

Mr. Hayes was entitled to take office as President. 
Here occurs, every day during a term, the one ancient 
and impressive ceremonial which can be witnessed at 
our seat of government. At the stroke of noon there 
appears at the right corner of the chamber the crier, 
who in a loud voice announces : "The Honorable the 
Supreme Court of the United States!" All present 
— attorneys, spectators, and minor functionaries — ■ 
rise and remain standing while the members of the 
Court enter in single file, the Chief Justice leading. 
The lawyers bow to the Justices, who return the bow 
before sinking into their chairs. Thereupon the crier 
makes his second announcement: "Oyez! Oyez ! 
Oyez ! All persons having business with the Honor- 
able the Supreme Court of the United States are 
admonished to draw near and give attention, as the 
Court is now sitting. God save the United States 
and this Honorable Court!" 

All the Justices wear gowns of black silk. John Jay, 
the first Chief Justice, relieved the somber monotony 
of his by adding a collar bound with scarlet, but the 
precedent was not followed. The Court has sometimes 
been styled the most dignified judicial tribunal in the 
world, and doubtless it deserves the compliment. 
Certainly no American need blush for its decorum. 
The whole atmosphere of its chamber is in keeping 

[69] 



Walks About Washington 

with the fact, reverently voiced by one of its old colored 
servitors, that "dey ain't no appeal f'm dis yere 
Co't 'xcep' to God Almighty." The arguments made 
before it are confined to calm, unemotional reasoning. 
The pleaders do not raise their voices, or forget their 
manners, or indulge in personalities or oratory while 
debating : and the opinions of the Court are recited 
with a quietness almost conversational. These opin- 
ions are very carefully guarded up to the moment they 
are read from the bench ; but now and then, after a 
decision has become history, there leaks out an enter- 
taining story of how it came to be rendered. 

One such instance was in the case of an imported 
delicacy which might have been classed either as a 
preparation of fish or as a flavoring sauce. The cus- 
toms officers had levied duty on it as a sauce, and an 
importer had appealed. The Justices, when they 
came to compare notes, confessed themselves sorely 
puzzled, and one of them suggested that, since the 
technical arguments were so well balanced, it might 
be wise to fall back upon common sense. That even- 
ing he carried a sample of the disputed substance home 
to his wife, who was an expert in culinary matters. 

"There, my dear," said he, "is a sauce for you 
to try." 

With one look at the contents of the package, 

[70] 



^'On the Hill" 

which she evidently recognized, she exclaimed : 
"Pshaw! That's no sauce; that's fish — didn't you 
know it ?" 

The next day the Court met again for consultation, 
and on the following Monday handed down a decision 
overruling the customs officers and sustaining the 
importer's appeal. 

Leaving the court-room and continuing northward, 
we come to the present Hall of the Senate. It is smaller 
than the present Hall of Representatives and also 
cleaner looking and more comfortable. When Congress 
is in full session, the contrast may be extended further 
so as to include what we hear as well as what we see, 
for there is little likeness between the two houses in 
the matter of orderliness of procedure. But that's 
another story, which will keep. It was from this 
chamber that the Senators from the seceding States 
took their departure in i860 and 1861. For years 
afterward the first request of every visiting stranger 
was to be shown the seats formerly occupied by these 
men. As long as the old doorkeeper of the Senate, 
Captain Bassett, lived, he was reputed to be the only 
person who knew the history of every desk on the 
floor. Whether he transmitted this knowledge to 
any of his assistants before his death, I cannot say ; 
but more than once he saved some of the furniture 

[71] 



Walks About Washington ! 

from injury at the hands of wanton vandals or curio 
collectors. 

During the early days of the Civil War, a party of 
Northern zouaves, passing through the city on their ' 
way to the front, entered the Senate Hall during a 
recess and tried to identify Davis's desk. They 
frankly avowed their purpose of destroying, if pos- 
sible, the last trace of the Confederate President's 
connection with the United States Government ; but 
Bassett refused to be coaxed, bribed, or bullied into 
revealing the information they wished. Their persist- \ 
ency presently aroused his fears lest they might come 
back later and renew their attempt in his absence ; 
so he resorted to diplomacy and made them a little 
speech, reminding them that, no matter what Mr. j 
Davis might have done to provoke their indignation, 
the desk at which he had sat was not his property, 
but that of the Government which they had come j 
South to defend. His reasoning had its effect, and, 1 
admitting that he was right, they went away peaceably. ! 

Back of the Senate chamber are two rooms set apart j 
for the President and Vice-president respectively. I 
Till lately, the President's room as a rule has been occu- \ 
pied only during a few closing hours of a session, when i 
the President wishes to be readily accessible for the j 
signing of such acts as he approves. Sometimes he | 

[72] \ 



''On the Hiir' 

has spent the entire last night of a Congress here, 
returning to the White House for breakfast and coming 
to the Capitol again for an hour or two before noon. 
President Wilson has used the room more than any of 
his recent predecessors, going there to consult the lead- 
ing members of his party in Congress while legislation 
is in course of preparation or passage. 

The Vice-president's room has been more constantly 
in use as a retiring room for its occupant during the 
intervals when he is not presiding over the sessions of 
the Senate. On its wall has hung for many years a 
little gilt-framed mirror for which John Adams, while 
Vice-president, paid forty dollars, and which was 
brought with the other appurtenances of the Senate 
from Philadelphia when the Government removed its 
headquarters to Washington. Many of the frugal 
founders of the republic were scandalized at the 
extravagance of the purchase, and one gravely intro- 
duced in the Senate a resolution censuring Adams for 
having drawn thus heavily upon the public funds "to 
gratify his personal vanity." What these good men 
would say if they were to revisit the Capitol now and 
see in the same room with the forty-dollar mirror a 
silver inkstand that cost two hundred dollars and a 
clock that cost a thousand, we can only imagine. It 
was in this room, by the way, that Vice-president 

[73] 



J'Falks About Washington 

Wilson died in November, 1875, after an attack of 
illness which suddenly overcame him at the Capitol 
and was too severe to justify his being carried to his 
home. 

On the floor below are two other points of interest. 
We shall do well to descend, not by the broad marble 
staircases in the north wing, but by an old iron-railed 
and curved flight of stone steps a little south of the 
Supreme Court. Note, in passing, its columns, as 
truly American in design as those above-stairs to which 
attention has already been directed ; for they conven- 
tionalize our Indian corn, the stalks making the body 
of a pillar and the leaves and ears the capital. The first 
point we shall visit is the crypt, which is directly under 
the rotunda. It is a vaulted chamber originally 
intended as a resting-place for the body of George 
Washington. There was to have been a circular open- 
ing in the ceiling, so that visitors in the rotunda could 
look down upon the sarcophagus, above which a sus- 
pended taper was to be kept continually burning. 
The light was duly hung there, and not extinguished 
for many years ; but as Washington's heirs were un- 
willing to allow his remains to leave Mount Vernon, 
the rest of the plan was abandoned. 

A little way north of the crypt we come to the room 
that the Supreme Court occupied for about forty 

[74] 



Rock Creek 



'^On the Hiir' 

years after the restoration of the Capitol. Out of it 
was sent the first message with which Samuel F. B. 
Morse announced to the world the success of his in- 
vention, the magnetic telegraph. Morse was perfectly 
convinced that his device was workable, but he had 
exhausted his means before being able to make a satis- 
factory experiment. He therefore asked Congress for 
an appropriation to equip a trial line between Wash- 
ington and Baltimore. Some of the members scoffed 
at his appeal as visionary ; others intimated that he 
was trying to impose upon the Government ; only a 
handful seemed to feel enough confidence in him and 
his project to vote for the appropriation. After a 
discouraging struggle lasting till the third of March, 
1843, Morse was at the Capitol watching the dying 
hours of the Congress, when his friends advised him 
that his cause was hopeless, and he returned to his 
hotel and went to bed. 

Before breakfast the next morning he received a 
call from Miss Annie Ellsworth, daughter of the Com- 
missioner of Patents, who brought him the news that 
after he had left the Capitol his appropriation had 
gone through, and the President had signed the bill 
just before midnight. To reward her as the bearer of 
glad tidings, Morse invited her to frame the first message 
to be sent to Baltimore. It took more than a year to 

[751 



Walks About Washington 

build the line and insure its successful operation ; 
but on May 24, 1844, in the presence of a gathering 
which filled the court chamber, the inventor seated 
himself at the instrument, and Miss Ellsworth placed 
in his hand a phrase she had selected from the twenty- 
third verse of the twenty-third chapter of the Book of 
Numbers: "What hath God wrought!" In less time 
than it takes to tell the facts, the operator in Baltimore 
had received the message and ticked it back without an 
error. In that hour of his triumph over skepticism 
and abuse, Morse could have asked almost anything 
of Congress without fear of repulse. 
- Not all the associations which cling about the Capi- 
tol are confined to politics or legislation, science or 
business. The old Hall of Representatives was, in 
the early days of the last century, long used for reli- 
gious meetings on Sundays, the Speaker's desk being 
converted temporarily into a pulpit. One of the 
first preachers who held stated services there was a 
Swedenborgian. When the custom had become well 
established, most of the clergymen of the city consented 
to take the Sundays in a certain order of succession. 
Sir Augustus Foster, a secretary of the British Lega- 
tion during Jefferson's administration, has left us his 
impressions of the meetings : 

"A church service can certainly never be called an 

[76] 



"0// the Hiir' 

amusement ; but, from the variety of persons who 
were allowed to preach in the House of Representatives, 
there doubtless was some alloy of curiosity in the 
motives which led one to go there. Though the regu- 
lar Chaplain was a Presbyterian, sometimes a Metho- 
dist, a minister of the Church of England, or a Quaker, 
sometimes even a woman, took the Speaker's chair, 
and I do not think there was much devotion among 
the majority. The New Englanders, generally speak- 
ing, are very religious ; but though there are many 
exceptions, I cannot say so much for the Marylanders, 
and still less for the Virginians." 

Probably this comment on the worldly element enter- 
ing into the meetings was called forth by their gradual 
degeneration into a social function. The hall came to 
be regarded as a pleasant Sunday gathering-place for 
friends who were able to see little of one another during 
the secular week. They clustered in knots around the 
open fireplaces, apparently quite as interested in the 
intervals afforded for a bit of gossip as in the sermon. 
The President was accustomed to attend from time to 
time ; and possibly it was by his order that the Marine 
Band, nearly one hundred strong and attired in their 
brilliant red uniforms, were present in the gallery and 
played the hymn tunes, as well as some stirring march 
music. Their attendance was discontinued later, as 

[77 1 



Walks About U^ashington 

their performances attracted many common idlers to a 
hall already crowded almost to suffocation with ladies 
and gentlemen of fashion, and thus increased the 
confusion. 

^Partly as a result of this use of the hall, the habit of 
treating Sunday as a day for social festivities of all 
sorts reached a point where the strict Sabbatarians felt 
called to remonstrate. One, a clergyman named 
Breckenridge, preached a sermon denouncing the 
irreligious frivolities of the time, which created a great 
sensation. He addressed his remarks directly to Con- 
gress. "It is not the people," said he, "who will 
suffer for these enormities. It is the Government. 
As with Nineveh of old, your temples and your palaces 
will be burned to the ground, for it is by fire that this 
sin has usually been punished !" And he cited instance 
after instance from Bible history, showing how cities, 
dwellings, and persons had been burned for disrespect 
of divine law. 

One day in the fall of 1814, after the British had 
left the city scarred with blackened ruins, Mr. Breck- 
enridge was passing the Octagon house, when he was 
hailed by Dolly Madison from the doorway. 

"When I listened to that threatening sermon of 
yours," she exclaimed, "I little thought that its warn- 
ings would be realized so soon." 

[78] 



^^On the Hiir 

"Oh, Madam," he answered, "I trust that the 
chastening of the Lord may not have been in vain!" 

It was, however, as far as any permanent change in 
the habits of the people was concerned. There was 
a brief interval of greater sobriety due to the sad plight 
of the community ; then Sunday amusements resumed 
their sway with as much vigor as of old. 

Although to the eye of the casual visitor the Capitol 
seems so quiet and well-ordered a place that it prac- 
tically takes care of itself, the truth is that it is con- 
tinually under pretty rigid surveillance. It has a uni- 
formed corps of special police, whose jurisdiction covers 
everything within the limits of Capitol Park ; besides 
this, the Superintendent of the Capitol has general 
oversight of the building, and the officers of the House 
and Senate look after their respective wings. When 
Thomas B. Reed of Maine became Speaker, he found 
the House wing a squatting ground for a small army 
of petty merchants who had crept in one by one and 
established booths for the sale of sandwiches and pies, 
cigars, periodicals, picture cards, and souvenirs, ob- 
structing the highways of communication between one 
part of the building and another. He proceeded to 
sweep them all out. There was loud wailing among 
the ousted, and some who could command a little 
political influence brought it to bear on him, but in 

[79] 



Walks About Washi7igton 

vain ; and for more than twenty years thereafter the 
corridors remained free from these intruders. With 
the incoming of the Sixty-third Congress, however, dis- 
cipHne began to relax, and, unless the House acquires 
another Speaker with Mr. Reed's notions of propriety 
and the force of will to compel obedience, we shall 
probably see the hucksters camping once more on the 
old trail. 

Outside of the building the rules are as well enforced 
as inside. When Coxey's Army of the Commonweal 
marched upon Washington in 1894, its leader adver- 
tised his intention to make a speech from the Capitol 
steps, calling upon Congress to provide work and 
wages for all the idle laborers in the country. Under 
the law, no harangue or oration may be delivered any- 
where on the Capitol grounds without the express 
consent of the presiding officers of the two chambers of 
Congress. Remembering the way the lawmakers had 
been intimidated by a mob at Philadelphia in the early 
days of the republic, neither the Speaker nor the Presi- 
dent of the Senate was willing that Coxey should carry 
out his plan ; and the Capitol police, without violence 
or display of temper, made short work of the proposed 
mass meeting. On another occasion, the performers 
for a moving-picture show attempted to use the steps 
of the Capitol as a background for a scene in which a 

[80] 



''On the Hiir 

man made up to resemble the President of the United 
States was to play an undignified part ; the police 
pounced down upon the company, confiscating the 
apparatus and escorting the actors to the nearest 
station-house. A like fate befel an automobilist who, 
on a wager, tried to drive his machine up the steps of 
the main portico. Occasionally a bicycler, ambitious 
to descend this staircase at full speed, has proved too 
quick-witted for the officers, but as a rule they are at 
hand when needed. 

Now that we are outside, let us look around. To 
the eastward lies the part of the city broadly desig- 
nated as Capitol Hill. As far as the eye can reach, it 
is a beautiful, evenly graded plateau — an ideal resi- 
dence region as far as natural topography, verdure, 
sunshine, and pure air are concerned. It is the part 
which George Washington and other promoters of the- 
federal city picked out for its residential end, and the 
Capitol was built so as to face it. These circumstances 
made it a favorite locality for speculative investment, 
and the prices at which early purchasers of land held 
out against later comers sealed its fate : the tide of 
favor turned toward the opposite end of the city, and 
the development of the northwest quarter took a 
start which has never since halted. The first plans of 
Capitol Park included on its eastern side a pretty 

[8i] 



Walks About Washington 

little fish-pond, circular in shape, which must have 
been about where the two raised flower-beds with 
mottled marble copings now flank the driveway to First 
Street. 

The west front of the Capitol overlooks a gentle 
slope pleasantly turfed and shaded. The building 
itself descends the slope a little way by an esplanade 
and a series of marble terraces, from which broad flights 
of steps lead down nearly to the main street level. 
The perspective view of the Capitol is much more im- 
pressive from this side than from the other, thanks to 
an admirable piece of landscape gardening. In old 
times, the lawns on the west side were used by the 
residents of the neighborhood for croquet grounds, 
and the whole park was enclosed in an iron fence, with 
gates that were shut by the watchmen at nine every 
evening against pedestrians, and at a somewhat later 
hour against carriages. With characteristic impatience 
of such restraints, sometimes a Congressman who had 
stayed at the Capitol past the closing hour would 
save himself the trouble of calling a guard to open 
the gate, by smashing the lock with a stone. The 
increasing frequency of such incidents undoubtedly 
had much to do with causing the removal of the fence. 

No point in the city affords so fine facilities for 
fixing L'Enfant's plan in the mind of the visitor and 

[82] 



<'0n the Hiir 

enabling him to find his way about the older parts of 
Washington, as the Capitol dome. A spiral staircase, 
the doors to which open from obscure parts of two 
corridors, leads first to the inside circular balcony 
crowning the rotunda. This is worth a few minutes' 
delay to test its quality as a whispering gallery. The 
attendant in charge will show you how, and, if you 
can lure him into telling you some of the funny things 
he has seen and heard in his eyrie, you will be well 
repaid. 

More climbing will bring you to an outside perch, 
which forms a sort of collar for the lantern surmount- 
ing the dome. Now open a plainly printed map of 
Washington and hold it so that the points of the 
compass on the map correspond with those of the city 
below you. With a five minutes' walk around the 
base of the lantern, to give you the view from every 
side, you will have mastered the whole scheme designed 
by L'Enfant. Here are the four quarters — north- 
east, southeast, southwest, northwest — as clearly 
spread before you on the surface of the earth as on the 
paper in your hand. Here is the Mall, with its grass 
and trees, leading up to the Washington Monument 
and abutting on the executive reservation where stand 
the White House, the Treasury, and the State, War 
and Navy Department buildings. Well out to the 

[83] 



Walks About Washington 

northward you can descry a tower which fixes the site 
of the Soldiers' Home, and to the southward the Poto- 
mac, flowing past the War College and the Navy 
Yard. East of you loom up the hills of Anacostia. 
On all sides you see the lettered streets running east 
and west, intersected by the numbered streets run- 
ning north and south, while, cutting both diagonally 
at various angles, but in pursuance of a systematic 
and easily grasped plan, are the avenues named in 
honor of the various States of the Union. Once let 
this chart fasten itself in your mind, and there is no 
reason why, total stranger though you may be, you 
should have any difficulty in finding your way about 
Washington. 



[84] 



Capitol, from New Jersey Avenue 



CHAPTER IV 
THESE OUR LAWMAKERS 

THE House of Representatives, albeit presenting 
an average of conduct equal to that of any corre- 
sponding chamber in the world, is a rough-and-tumble 
body. It is apt to carry partisan antagonisms 
to extremes and wrangle over anything that comes 
up, with accusations and recriminations, and at rare 
intervals an exchange of blows. Repeatedly I have 
seen the Sergeant-at-Arms lift his mace and march 
down one aisle and up another, to compose dis- 
turbances which seemed to threaten a sequel of riot, 
while the Speaker pounded his desk in an effort 
to overcome the clamor of several members trying to 
talk at once. By laxity of discipline and force of 
custom, there is a degree of freedom here, in even a 
peaceful discussion, unknown to the Senate. Mem- 
bers will bring, to exemplify their statements in a 
tariff debate, samples of merchandise — a suit of 
clothes, a basket of fruit, a jar of sweetmeats, perhaps. 
One day a debater, discussing olive oil, accidentally 

[85] 



Walks About Washington 

dropped a bottle of it on the floor, and several of 
his colleagues lost their footing in crossing the scene 
of the disaster. Another, who had a pocketful of 
matches designed for illustrative purposes, suddenly 
found his clothes ablaze and made a fiery bolt for a 
water-tank. Still another, inflamed by his own elo- 
quence in trying to show how Congress ought to wring 
the life out of an odious monopoly, impetuously laid 
hands upon a small and inoffensive fellow member 
who happened to sit near and shook him till his teeth 
rattled, amid roars of delight from every one except 
the victim. 

Usually, the Senate is as staid as the House is up- 
roarious. All routine business is transacted there 
"by unanimous consent"; it is only when some really 
important issue arises that the Senators quarrel pub- 
licly. When a serious debate is on, there is no com- 
motion : every Senator who wishes to speak sends his 
name to the presiding officer, or rises during a lull and 
announces his purpose of addressing the Senate on a 
specified day. The rest of the Senators respect his 
privilege, and, if he is a man of consequence, a goodly 
proportion of them will be in their seats to hear him. 
If a Senator is absent from the chamber when a matter 
arises which might concern him, some one is apt to 
suggest deferring its consideration till he can be pres- 

[86] 



These our Lawmakers 

ent. It is the same way with appointments to office 
which require confirmation by the Senate : a Senator 
objecting to a candidate nominated from his State 
can count upon abundant support from his fellow 
Senators, every one of whom realizes that it may be 
his turn next to need support in a similar contingency. 
This is what is called "Senatorial courtesy." So well 
is it understood that no unfair advantage will be taken 
of any one's absence, that the attendance in the cham- 
ber sometimes becomes very thin. An instance is 
often cited when the Vice-president, discovering only 
one person on the floor at the beginning of a day's 
session, rapped with his gavel and solemnly an- 
nounced : "The Senator from Massachusetts will be 
in order !" 

The strong contrast between the two chambers has 
existed ever since the creation of Congress. This is 
not wonderful when we reflect that the Senate was for 
a long time made up of men chosen by the State legis- 
latures from a social class well removed from the masses 
of the people, and that they held office for a six-year 
term, thus lording it over the members of the House 
of Representatives, who, besides being drawn directly 
from the rank and file of the body politic, had to strug- 
gle for reelection every two years. In the early days, 
the Senators were noted for their rich attire and their 

[871 



Walks About Washington 

great gravity of manner ; whereas most of the Repre- 
sentatives persisted, while sitting in the House during 
the debates, in wearing their big cocked hats set "fore 
and aft" on their heads. Whether the Senate sat 
covered or bareheaded for the first few years of its 
existence, we have only indirect evidence, as it then 
kept its doors closed against everybody, even members 
of the House. Little by little a more liberal spirit 
asserted itself, until the doors were opened to the 
public for a certain part of every morning, with the 
proviso that they should be closed whenever the sub- 
jects of discussion seemed to require secrecy. By 
common consent, these subjects were limited to cer- 
tain classes of business proposed by the President, 
like the ratification of treaties and the confirmation of 
appointments to office. Such matters remain confi- 
dential to this day, and the Senate holds itself ready 
to exclude spectators and go into secret session at any 
moment, on the request of a single Senator. 

As a secret session is always supposed to be for the 
purpose of discussing a Presidential communication, 
the fiction is embalmed in the form of a motion "that 
the Senate proceed to the consideration of executive 
business." This is the signal for the doorkeepers to 
evict the occupants of the galleries and shut the doors 
leading into the corridors ; but sometimes the real 

[88] 



These our Lawmakers 

reason for the request is widely removed from its pre- 
text. I have known it to be offered for the purpose of 
cutting short the exhibition which a tipsy Senator was 
making of himself ; or to prevent a tedious airing of 
grievances by a Senator who had quarreled with the 
President over the dispensation of patronage in his 
State; or to silence a Senator who, objecting to the 
negotiation of a certain treaty, kept referring to it in 
open debate while it was still pending under the seal of 
confidence. In this last instance, the offending Sena- 
tor was so obstinate of purpose that the doors had to 
be closed and reopened several times in a single day. 

On the face of things, there is no reason why the 
President should not attend any session of the Senate 
at which business of his originating is under debate. 
No President since the first, however, has made the 
experiment. Washington attended three secret ses- 
sions, but was so angered by the Senate's referring to 
a committee sundry questions which he insisted should 
be settled on the spot, that he quitted the chamber, 
emphatically vowing that he would waste no more 
time on such trifling. The Senators excused their 
conduct by saying that they were embarrassed in 
talking about the President and his motives while he 
was sitting there. 

The custom of wearing their hats while transacting 

[^9] 



Walks About Washington 

business was continued by the Representatives for 
fifty years or more. Even the Speaker, as long as he 
sat in his chair, would keep his hat on, though he was 
accustomed to remove it when he stood to address the 
House. The Senators, whatever may have been their 
practice during the years of their seclusion, distin- 
guished themselves from the Representatives imme- 
diately thereafter by sitting with bared heads. They 
also avoided the habit, common in the House, of put- 
ting their feet up on the nearest elevated object — 
usually a desk-lid — and lolling on their spines. Eng- 
lish visitors, though accustomed to the wearing of hats 
in their own House of Commons, nevertheless found a 
text for criticism in the way the American Represen- 
tatives did it ; and they all had something severe to 
say of the prevalence of tobacco-chewing in the House, 
with its accompaniment of spitting, as Mrs. Trollope 
put it, "to an excess that decency forbids me to de- 
scribe." Less offensive to the taste of our visitors 
from abroad was the indulgence in snuff-taking, which 
was so general that boxes or jars were set up in con- 
venient places inside of both halls, and it was made 
the duty of certain employees to keep these always 
filled with a fine brand of snuff. Any of the most 
eloquent orators in Congress was liable to stop at 
regular intervals in a speech to help himself to a large 

[90! 



These our Lawmakers 

pinch, bury his face in a bandanna handkerchief, and 
have it out with nature. A few of the lawmakers, 
indeed, cultivated snuff-taking as a fine art, and were 
proud of their reputations for dexterity in it. Henry 
Clay was one of the most skilful. 

^ While we are on the subject of indulgences, we must 
not overlook a drink called switchel, which was very 
popular, being compounded of rum, ginger, molasses, 
and water. Every member was allowed then, as now, 
in addition to his salary and traveling expenses, a fixed 
supply of "stationery"; and this term, which was 
elastic enougH to include everything from pens and 
paper to jack-knives and razors, was stretched to cover 
the delectable switchel under the thin disguise of 
"sirup." In later years, when a wave of teetotal- 
ism had swept over Washington, and the open sale of 
alcoholic drinks in the restaurants of the Capitol was 
under a temporary ban, any member who wished a 
drink of whisky ordered it as "cold tea," and it was 
served to him in a china cup. This stratagem fell 
into marked discredit when one of the most respectable 
and abstemious members of the House, who had never 
tasted Intoxicating liquor of any sort, ordered cold tea 
in entire good faith to clear his throat in the midst 
of a speech, and became maudlin before he was aware 
that anything was amiss. 

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Walks About Washington 

.Besides sprawling with their feet higher than their 
heads, and otherwise airing their contempt for con- 
ventional etiquette, many of the old-time Represen- 
tatives felt free to read newspapers while debates were 
going on around them, indifferent to their disturbance 
of both orators and audience. The first pointed re- 
buke of this practice was administered by James K. 
Polk when Speaker of the House. He noticed one 
morning that substantially every Representative had 
a newspaper in hand when the gavel fell for beginning 
the day's session. The journal was read, but nobody 
paid any attention to it, and then the Speaker made 
his usual announcement that the House was ready 
for business. Still everybody remained buried in the 
morning's news. After another vain attempt to set the 
machinery in motion, Mr. Polk quietly drew a news- 
paper from his own pocket, seated himself with his 
back toward the House, spread the sheet open before 
him, and ostentatiously immersed himself in its printed 
contents. One by one the Representatives finished 
their reading, and perhaps a quarter of an hour passed 
before there came from all sides an irregular volley of 
calls: "Mr. Speaker!" "Mr. Speaker!" Mr. Polk 
ignored them till one of the baffled members moved 
that the House proceed to the election of a presiding 
officer, to take the place of the Speaker, who appeared 

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These our Lawmakers 

to be absent. This brought Mr. Polk to his feet with 
the remark that he not only was present, but had noti- 
fied the House that it was ready for business and had 
received no response. The House took the joke in 
good part and showed by its conduct thereafter that 
it was not above profiting by the Speaker's reproof. 

Although women were admitted as spectators to the 
sessions of both chambers on the same terms as men, 
there was for many years an undercurrent of feeling 
against their encroachments. There was limited room 
In either hall for their accommodation behind the col- 
onnade. In this space — the original "lobby" — 
there was an open fireplace at each end, and it soon 
became a common complaint among the Senators that 
the feminine guests drew the sofas up in front of the 
fire and thus effectually shut off the warmth from every 
one else. Aaron Burr, while Vice-president, was the 
first person in authority to take cognizance of this 
indictment. He notified the visiting women that 
after a certain date they must cease coming into the 
lobby and find seats in the gallery. They were appro- 
priately indignant and declared an almost unanimous 
boycott against the Senate. Vice-president Clinton 
was of a different temper from his predecessor and let 
them all come back again. By degrees, however, as 
the privileges of the floor became more and more re- 

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stricted in both chambers, the women were given a 
special gallery for themselves. 

From the time they began coming to Congress in 
any multitude, the fair visitors have made their pres- 
ence felt. In the House one day John Randolph drew 
attention to them by halting a debate to point a 
long, skinny finger in their direction and snarl out : 
"Mr. Speaker, what, pray, are all these women doing 
here, so out of place in this arena t Sir, they had 
much better be at home attending to their knitting!" 
In spite of that, they continued to come and to attract 
attention, till the number of members who habitually 
quitted their seats to repair to the gallery and pay 
their devoirs to their lady friends threatened to play 
havoc with the roll-calls. This abuse did not last 
long, and nowadays the visit of a member of either 
house to the gallery is an incident. 

So far from objecting to spectators, both House and 
Senate now offer distinct encouragement to the public 
to come and hear the debates. To this end, each 
chamber has a deep gallery completely surrounding 
it, with cross partitions at intervals. One section 
is reserved for the President and Cabinet and their 
families ; another for the members of the diplomatic 
circle; a third for the members of the press, and so 
forth. Control of each press gallery is nominally 

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These our Lawmakers 

retained by the chamber concerned, but actually is 
left in the hands of a committee of newspaper men, 
who enforce an exemplary discipline, so that a writer 
guilty of misconduct would be excluded thencefor- 
ward from his privileges. On the other hand, the news- 
paper men have always stood firmly for their right to 
discuss the members and measures of Congress with 
all the freedom consonant with truth. It has required 
a long and sometimes dramatic struggle to bring about 
the present harmonious mutual understanding between 
Congress and the press as to the legitimate preserves 
of each body upon which the other must not trespass. 
Some of the battles leading to this result are enter- 
taining to recall. In the later forties, while members 
of the press were still permitted to do their work at 
desks on the floor of the House, a correspondent of 
the New York Tribune named Robinson published an 
article about a certain Representative named Sawyer, 
whose unappetizing personal habits he thought it would 
be wise to break up. Among other things he described 
the way Sawyer ate his luncheon : "Every day at two 
o'clock he feeds. About that hour he is seen leaving 
his seat and taking a position in the window back of 
the Speaker's chair to the left. He unfolds a greasy 
paper, in which is contained a chunk of bread and sau- 
sage, or some other unctuous substance. He disposes 

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Walks About Washington 

of them rapidly, wipes his hands with the greasy paper 
for a napkin, and throws it out of the window. What 
Httle grease is left on his hands, he wipes on his almost 
bald head." There was more to the same effect, but 
this will suffice. When the paper containing the arti- 
cle reached Washington, there was much laughing be- 
hind hands in Congress ; but, though most of the 
members rejoiced that somebody should have told 
the truth for the dignity of the House, few had the 
courage to come out boldly and say that the satire 
was deserved. 

One of Sawyer's colleagues retaliated with a resolu- 
tion that all writers for the Tribune be excluded thence- 
forward from the floor ; after a brief debate it was 
adopted, and the oflfending correspondent was obliged 
to go up into the gallery and sit among the women. 
But his pursuers were not satisfied with this measure 
of revenge ; for, reviving a half-forgotten rule that 
men were to be admitted to the gallery only when 
accompanied by women, and then must be passed in 
by a member of the House, they sent a doorkeeper 
to eject him even from his temporary refuge. At once 
several ladies volunteered to accompany him for his 
visits, and among the Congressmen who climbed the 
stairs from day to day to pass him in was one not 
less distinguished than John Quincy Adams. Nor 

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Where Dolly Madison Gave Her Farewell Ball 



These our Lawmakers 

was this the end. For the correspondent went home, 
ran for Congress and was elected, while the wrathful 
Representative dropped into obscurity under the 
nickname, which he was never able to shake off, of 
"Sausage Sawyer." 

Many newspaper publications have been made 
subjects of special investigation by committees of 
Congress, but in no instance has a threat of expulsion 
from the gallery or of prosecution in the courts produced 
any practical results ; and the locking up of recusant 
committee witnesses has become a mere mockery. 
The most notable case on record was that of Hallet 
Kilbourn, a former journalist who had become a real 
estate broker and a leading participant in a local land 
syndicate which the House undertook to investigate. 
Kilbourn was commanded to produce certain account- 
books, as well as the names and addresses of sundry 
persons who, not being members of Congress, he in- 
sisted were outside the jurisdiction of that body. For 
his refusal to furnish the information demanded he 
was thrown into jail and kept there nearly six weeks. 
From the first, he had declared that he had no objec- 
tion to opening his accounts to the whole world or to 
publishing the data desired, as all the transactions 
covered by the inquiry had been honorable ; and this 
assertion he proved later by voluntarily printing 

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Walks About Washington 

everything. But he was resolved to make a legal test 
of the right of Congress to arrogate to itself the arbi- 
trary powers of a court of justice, and he got a good 
deal of enjoyment out of the experience. 

For the whole period of his imprisonment he lived 
like a prince at the expense of the contingent fund of 
the House ; drove about the city at will in a carriage, 
merely accompanied by a deputy sergeant-at-arms ; 
and entertained his friends at dinner within the jail 
walls. Of course, the newspapers exploited the whole 
episode gladly, and when he had held his prosecutors 
up to popular ridicule long enough, he sued out a writ 
of habeas corpus and was released. Then he brought 
a suit for damages against the Sergeant-at-Arms for 
false imprisonment and won it on appeal after appeal, 
till the Supreme Court of the United States handed 
down a sweeping decision that "there is not found in 
the Constitution any general power vested in either 
house to punish for contempt." In spite of the efforts 
of all the judges in the lower courts to cut down the 
damages granted by their juries. Congress was finally 
obliged to pay Kilbourn twenty thousand dollars, or 
about five hundred dollars a day for his forty days' 
incarceration. It took him nine years to carry his case 
through all its stages. 

Both chambers open their daily sessions with 

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These our Lawmakers 

prayer. Clergymen of nearly all denominations have 
served as Chaplains, including Father Pise, a very 
eloquent Catholic priest who was a close friend of 
Henry Clay and was invited at his instance to lead the 
devotions of the Senate. As a rule, the prayers are 
extemporaneous, and it seems almost inevitable that, 
in periods of political upheaval, some color of parti- 
sanship should creep into them. Yet such slips have 
been very rare indeed. The most startling was made 
by the late Doctor Byron Sunderland, who was Chap- 
lain of the Senate in 1862. He was the foremost Pres- 
byterian minister in Washington and a strong anti- 
slavery advocate. One day Senator Saulsbury of 
Delaware, who was an accomplished biblical scholar, 
made a speech reviewing the references in the Hebrew 
scriptures to human servitude, as proof that slavery 
was of divine origin. Doctor Sunderland, having left 
the hall, did not hear the speech made, but was told 
about it when he arrived at the Capitol the next 
morning. He was nettled by the news, and, before 
he was fairly conscious of it, he caught himself saying 
something like this in his opening prayer: "Oh, Lord 
God of Nations, teach this Senate and all the people 
of this country that, if slavery is of divine institution, 
so is hell itself, and by Thy grace help us to abolish 
the one and escape the other!" These few words 

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Walks About JVashi?igton 

caused a great sensation, and later in the day Mr. 
Saulsbury vented his indignation in a resolution to 
expel the offending clergyman from the chaplaincy ; but 
some quick-witted Senator on the opposite side cut off 
debate by moving to adjourn, and the matter died there. 
Every day's proceedings of Congress are published 
in a special journal called the Record; but it must not 
be too lightly assumed that every speech reported 
has been made in Congress. One of the rules of the 
House of Representatives permits a member, with 
the consent of the House, to be credited with having 
made remarks which, as a matter of fact, he has only 
reduced to writing and handed to the Clerk. That is 
what is meant by the *' leave to print" privilege. Into 
the authorship of these speeches, or even of some that 
are delivered, it is not wise to probe too far. There 
are trained writers in Washington who earn a livelihood 
by digging out statistics and other data and composing 
addresses on various subjects for orators who are will- 
ing to pay for them, and Congressmen are among their 
customers. Once in a while something happens which 
casts a temporary shadow over this traffic. Several 
years ago, for example, two Representatives from 
Ohio were credited in the Record with the same speech. 
Inquiry developed the fact that it had been offered to 
one of them, who had refused either to pay the price 

[ loo] 



These our Lawmakers 

demanded for it or to give it back ; so the author had 
sold a duplicate copy to the other. But worse yet was 
the plight of two members who delivered almost identical 
eulogies on a dead fellow member, having by accident 
copied their material from the same ancient volume of 
"Rules and Models for Public Speaking." 
N^ I have alluded to disorders which occasionally mar 
the course of legislation, when members hurl ugly 
names at each other or even exchange blows. While 
some such affrays have carried their high tension 
to the end and sent the combatants to the dueling 
field to settle accounts, others have taken a comical 
turn which decidedly relaxed the strain. Perhaps the 
most picturesque incident of this kind was the historic 
Keitt-Grow contest in February, 1858. The House 
had been engaged all night in a wrangle over an acute 
phase of the slavery question, and two o'clock in the 
morning found both the Northern and the Southern 
members with their nerves on edge. Mr. Keitt of 
South Carolina, objecting to something said by Mr. 
Grow of Pennsylvania, struck at him, but Grow par- 
ried the blow, and a fellow member who sprang to his 
assistance knocked Keitt down. From all sides came 
reenforcements, and in a few minutes what started 
as a personal encounter of minor importance developed 
into a general free fight. 

[lOl] 



Walks About Washington 

Potter of Wisconsin, a man of athletic build, whirled 
his fists right and left, doing tremendous execution. 
Owen Lovejoy, seeing Lamar of Mississippi striding 
toward a confused group, ran at him with arms extended, 
resolved on pushing him back, while Lamar as vigorously 
resisted the obstruction. Covode of Pennsylvania, 
fearing lest his friend Grow might be overpowered 
by hostile numbers, picked up a big stoneware 
spittoon and hurried forward, holding his impro- 
vised projectile poised to hurl at the head where 
it would do most good ; but having no immediate 
need to use it, he set it on top of a convenient desk. 
Everybody was too excited to pay any attention to 
the loud pounding of the Speaker's gavel, or to the 
advance of the Sergeant-at-Arms with his mace held 
aloft. Even the unemotional John Sherman and his 
gray-haired Quaker colleague Mott could not keep 
out of the fray entirely. 

\ But Elihu Washburne of Illinois and his brother 
Cadwallader of Wisconsin proved by all odds the 
heroes of the occasion. They were of modest stature, 
but sturdy and full of energy. Elihu tackled Craig of 
North Carolina, who was tall and had long arms, 
which he swung about him with a flail-like motion ; 
and it would have gone hard with the smaller man 
had he not suddenly lowered his head and used it as 

[ I02 ] 



These our Lawmakers 

a battering-ram, aiming at the unprotected waist-line 
of his antagonist and doubling him up with one irre- 
sistible rush. Just then Cadwallader, seeing Barks- 
dale of Mississippi about to strike Elihu, ran toward 
him ; but being unable to penetrate the crowd, he 
leaped forward and reached over the heads of the 
intervening men to seize the Mississippian by the 
hair. Here came the culmination ; for Barksdale's 
ambrosial locks, which were only a lifelike wig worn 
to cover a pate as smooth as a soap-bubble, came off 
in his assailant's hand. The astonishment of the one 
man and the consternation of the other were too much 
for the fighters, who, in spite of themselves, united in 
wild peals of merriment ; and their hilarity was in no 
wise dampened when Barksdale, snatching at his wig, 
restored it to his head hind side before, or when Covode, 
returning to his seat and missing his spittoon, marched 
solemnly down the aisle and recovered it from its 
temporary perch. 

This scene occurred in the old Hall of Representa- 
tives. The most dramatic scene ever witnessed in 
the present hall was one which attended the opening 
of the Fifty-first Congress, when the Republicans, 
who had only an infinitesimal majority, had organized 
the House with Thomas B. Reed as Speaker. Reed, 
who was a large, blond man with a Shakespearian head 

[ 103 ] 



Walks About Washington 

and a high-pitched drawl, signaUzed his entrance upon 
his new duties by announcing his purpose to preside 
over a lawmaking rather than a do-nothing body. 
For several successive Congresses the House had found 
itself crippled in its attempts to transact business by 
the dilatory tactics of whichever party happened to 
be in the minority. Day after day, even in a con- 
gested season, would be wasted in roll-calls necessi- 
tated by some one's raising the point of "no quorum," 
although everybody knew that a quorum was present, 
and that its apparent absence was deliberately caused 
by the refusal of members of the opposition to answer 
to their names. Reed had bent his mind to breaking 
up this practice. 

Early in his Speakership a motion to take up a con- 
tested election case was put to vote, and a roll-call 
demanded as usual by the minority. As the House 
was then constituted, one hundred and sixty-six mem- 
bers were necessary to a quorum, and four Republi- 
cans were unavoidably absent. Following the old 
tactics, nearly all the Democrats abstained from vot- 
ing ; but, as the call proceeded. Reed was observed 
making notes on a sheet of paper which lay on his 
table. At the close, he rose and announced the vote : 
yeas 162, nays 3, not voting 163. Mr. Crisp of 
Georgia at once raised the point of no quorum. Reed 

[ 104] 



These our Lawmakers 

ignored it, and, lifting his memorandum, began, in 
measured tones and with no trace of excitement or 
weakness : 

"The Chair directs the Clerk to record the follow- 
ing names of members present and refusing to vote — " 

And then Bedlam broke loose. The Republicans 
applauded, and howls and yells arose from the Demo- 
cratic side. Above the din could be heard the voice 
of Crisp: "I appeal from the decision of the Chair!" 
But the Speaker, not having finished his statement, 
kept right on, oblivious of the turmoil : 

"Mr. Blanchard, Mr. Bland, Mr. Blount, Mr. 
Breckinridge of Arkansas, Mr. Breckinridge of Ken- 
tucky — " 

The Democrats generally had seemed stunned by 
the boldness of this move ; but the Kentucky Breck- 
inridge, at the mention of his name, rushed down 
the aisle, brandishing his fist and shaking his head so 
that its straight white hair stood out from it. His 
face was aflame with anger, and his voice quite beyond 
his control, as he shrieked: "I deny the power of the 
Speaker — this is revolutionary!" The other Demo- 
crats, inspired by his example and recovering from 
their stupefaction, poured into the center aisle. They 
bore down in a mass upon the Speaker's dais, gesticu- 
lating wildly and all shouting at once, so that nothing 

[105] 



Walks About Washington 

could be understood from the babel of voices save their 
desire to express their scorn for the Speaker and their 
defiance of his authority. The Republicans sat quiet, 
making no demonstration, but obviously prepared to 
rush in if the trouble took on a more violent form. 
The Speaker stood apparently unruffled, not even 
changing color, and only those who were near enough 
to see every line in his face were aware of that slight 
twitching of the muscles of his mouth which always 
indicated that his outward composure was not due to 
insensibility. 

So furious was the clamor that he was compelled 
to desist from his reading for a moment, while he 
pounded with his gavel to command order on the 
floor. Then, as the remonstrants fell back a little, 
his nasal tone was heard again, still reciting that 
momentous list : 

■ "Mr. Brookshire, Mr. Bullock, Mr. Bynum, Mr. 
Carlisle — " 

And so on down the roll, one member after another 
jumping up when he heard his name called, but sub- 
siding as the Speaker went imperturbably ahead, 
much as might a schoolmaster with a roomful of re- 
fractory pupils. Presently came the opportunity he 
had been waiting for. Mr. McCreary of Kentucky, 
a very dignified, decorous-mannered gentleman on 

[io6] 



These our Lawmakers 

ordinary occasions, had shown by his change of counte- 
nance and color that he was repressing his emotions 
with difficulty ; and, resolved not to be ridden over 
ruthlessly as the rest had been, he had risen in his place 
and stood there, holding before him an open book and 
waiting to hear his name. The instant it was read out, 
he raised his disengaged hand and shouted : "Mr. 
Speaker !" 

To every one's astonishment, the Speaker paused, 
turning a look of inquiry toward the interrupter, while 
the House held its breath. 

"I deny," cried Mr. McCreary, in a voice which, 
in spite of his endeavor to be calm, was trembling with 
agitation, "your right to count me as present; and I 
desire to cite some parliamentary law in support of my 
point!" 

Reed, wearing an air of entire seriousness, answered 
with his familiar drawl : 

"The Chair is making a statement of fact that the 
gentleman is present." Then, with a significant em- 
phasis on each word : "Does — the — gentleman — 
deny — it V 

The silence which had settled momentarily upon 
the chamber continued for a few seconds more, to be 
succeeded by an outburst of laughter which fairly 
shook the ceiling. The Republican side furnished most 

[ 107] 



Walks About Washington 

of it at first, but those Democrats who possessed a keen 
sense of humor soon gave way also. The Speaker, 
still grave as a statue, maintained the expectant atti- 
tude of one aw^aiting the reply to a question. Mc- 
Creary held his ground for a few minutes, striving to 
make himself heard in reading a passage from his 
book, while the gavel beat a tattoo on the desk as if 
the Speaker were trying to aid him by restoring order ; 
but he was talking against a torrent, and had to real- 
ize his defeat and resume his seat. 

When the last name on the written list had been 
read, the Speaker handed the sheet to the Clerk for 
incorporation in the minutes, and, as coolly as if noth- 
ing had happened, proceeded to set forth briefly the 
precedents covering the case, including one ruling 
made by a very distinguished Democrat who was at 
that hour the most conspicuous candidate of his party 
for the Presidency. 

The fight was resumed the next day and continued 
to rage all through the session, the foes of the Speaker 
constantly devising new stratagems to outwit him, 
but in vain. Sometimes there were funny little devel- 
opments, as when, in a precipitate flight of the Demo- 
crats from the hall to escape being counted, Mr. 
O'Ferrall of Virginia inadvertently left his hat on 
his desk, and the Speaker jocosely threatened to count 

[io8] 



Lee Mansion at Arlington 







.t: 



W^f: 









i 






These our Lawmakers 

that, on the theory that its habitual wearer was con- 
structively present; or when "Buck" Kilgore, a giant 
Democrat from Texas, refused to stay in the hall after 
the Speaker had ordered the doors fastened, and kicked 
one of them open with his Number 14 boot. Some- 
times a tragic threat would be uttered by a group of 
hot-headed enemies, and the galleries would be thronged 
for several days with spectators expecting to see Reed 
dragged out of the chair by force and arms. But, 
though every day witnessed its parliamentary struggle, 
the bad blood aroused was never actually spilled. 
What did happen was that, at the close of the Con- 
gress, when it is customary for the opposition party 
to move a vote of thanks to the Speaker, Reed went 
without the compliment. Something far more flatter- 
ing than thanks was in store for him, however ; for in 
the Fifty-third Congress, the House, which was then 
under Democratic control, by a vote of nearly five to 
one adopted his quorum-counting rule with only a 
technical modification. Since that day it has never 
found itself in a condition of legislative paralysis. 

The communications in which the President, as 
required by the Constitution, gives to Congress from 
time to time "information of the state of the Union," 
take the form of general and special messages. A 
general message is sent at the beginning of every ses- 

[ 109] 



Walks About Washington 

sion and usually reviews the relations of our Govern- 
ment with its citizens and with the outside world. 
A special message is called forth by some particular 
event or series of events requiring a union of counsels 
between the legislative and executive branches of the 
Government. 

The formalities attending the presentation of gen- 
eral messages have differed at various stages of our 
national history. John Adams, for example, brought 
his in person to the Capitol. A military and civic 
procession escorted him from his house to the Senate 
chamber, where the Senators and Representatives 
were assembled in joint session. He was attired with 
more elegance than was his wont and was accompanied 
by the members of his Cabinet, the United States 
Marshal acting as usher ; the Vice-president sur- 
rendered to him the chair of honor and took a seat 
at his right while he read his address aloud. In those 
days, each house appointed a committee to consider 
the address of the President and to draft a reply to 
it ; when the reply was ready, a committee waited 
upon him to inquire at what time it would be 
agreeable for him to receive it, and on the day ap- 
pointed, the members called upon him in a body to 
present it. 

The message ceremonial was considerably short- 

[no] 



These our Lawmakers 

ened during the administration of President Jeffer- 
son, who scandalized some of the sticklers for propriety 
by reading his first address to Congress clad in a plain 
blue coat with gilt buttons, blue breeches, woolen 
stockings, and heavy shoes tied with leather strings. 
This democratic departure was typical of the way a 
good many old customs died out. We find most of 
the later Presidents, till the spring of 191 3, rather 
studiously avoiding the Capitol, meeting Congress 
seldom outside of the White House, and confining their 
official communications to written messages presented 
in duplicate at the doors of the two halls respectively 
by the hand of an executive clerk. The response of 
each house, if any is deemed worth while, now takes 
the form of the introduction of legislation on lines 
suggested by the President. But the common prac- 
tice is to cut a message into parts, referring the pas- 
sages which deal with one class of subjects to one 
committee, and those which deal with another class 
to another committee ; and in most cases, unless an 
emergency arises to make further consideration essen- 
tial, little more is heard of them. 

President Wilson has revived the custom of visiting 
Congress in Its own home and there delivering his 
addresses directly to the lawmakers in a body, assem- 
bled for the occasion in the Hall of Representatives. 

[Ill] 



Walks About Washington 

This is a much more effective mode of approaching 
Congress than sending a written document by mes- 
senger, to be drawled through in a singsong voice by 
tired clerks, simultaneously in both halls, to a gather- 
ing of only half-interested auditors. It is also a more 
certain means of concentrating public attention upon 
the work of the session. There is a subtle something 
in the very personality of a President which appeals 
to the popular imagination. As the one high officer of 
state elected by the votes of all the people, he stands 
in their minds as a conservator and champion of their 
broadest ideals, as contrasted with the narrower sec- 
tional interests represented by the members of Con- 
gress. When, therefore, he takes his position face to 
face with the men who are to frame whatever legisla- 
tion grows out of his recommendations, the whole 
country instinctively draws near and listens. 

It is hard to guess what might happen should it 
fall to the lot of President Wilson to appear before 
Congress in person with such a trumpet-call as was 
sounded in President Harrison's message on the mal- 
treatment of our sailors in Chile, or President Cleve- 
land's on the encroachments of England in Venezuela, 
or President McKinley's on the failure of his peaceful 
efforts for freeing Cuba. If the mere reading of these 
formal messages was so impressive as to paint a vivid 

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These our Lawmakers 

picture of the attendant scenes on the memory of all ( 
who witnessed them, what an extra touch of the dra- 
matic would have been added had the chief executive 
of the nation appeared at the Capitol to tell his story 
himself J 



[113] 



CHAPTER V 
"THE OTHER END OF THE AVENUE" 

ALTHOUGH Pennsylvania Avenue is several 
miles long, the mile that lies between the hill 
on which Congress sits and the slope where the Presi- 
dent lives is called in local parlance "the Avenue." 
Outside of their formal speeches and documentary 
literature, members of Congress are wont to refer to 
the White House and its surroundings as "the other 
end of the Avenue," This familiar phrase is, like the 
popular designation of Congress as "the gentlemen on 
the hill," a survival from the period when only one 
hill in town was officially occupied, and the strip of 
highway connecting it with the group of buildings used 
by the executive branch of the Government was about 
the only thoroughfare making any serious pretensions 
to street improvement. It was along this line that 
President Jeiferson planted the first shade trees ; and 
L'Enfant's plan made the south side of it the northern 
boundary of the Mall. 

The title which for almost a hundred years the Ameri- 

[114] 



" Tbe Other End of the Avenue^"" 

can people have given to the headquarters of their 
chief public servant is a fine example of historic acci- 
dent. The White House was not originally intended 
to be a white house. It was built of a buff sandstone 
which proved to be so affected by exposure to the 
weather that as an afterthought it was covered with 
a thick coat of white paint. From its nearness to sev- 
eral red brick buildings, many persons fell into the 
way of distinguishing it by its color, and after its re- 
painting to conceal the stains of the fire of 1814 this 
practice became general. Presidents have referred to it 
in their messages variously as the President's House, 
the Executive Mansion, and the White House. Among 
the people it was also sometimes known, in the early 
days, as the Palace. The Roosevelt administration 
made the White House both the official and the social 
designation, and fastened the label so tight that there 
is little reason to expect a change by any successor. 
The White House was born under the eye of Martha 
Washington, was nursed into healthy babyhood by 
Abigail Adams, received its baptism of fire under 
Dolly Madison, was popularly christened under Eliza 
Kortright Monroe, and passed through numberless 
vicissitudes under a line of foster-mothers stretching 
from that time to the end of the century, every one 
carrying it a little further away from its original plan ; 

[IIS] 



Walks About Washington 

then Edith Kermit Roosevelt administered a resto- 
rative eHxir which started it upon a second youth. The 
evolution of the Capitol, described in an earlier chap- 
ter, finds a parallel in the architectural genesis of this 
building. Its drawings were made and its construction 
superintended by James Hoban, an Irishman ; but a 
distinguished critic has described it as "designed on 
classic lines, modified by an English hand, at a time 
when French art furnished the world's models in in- 
terior detail." That accounts, of course, for its monu- 
mental and palatial features. 

But we must bear in mind that its sponsors intended 
it not only as an ofiicial residence for the executive head 
of the Government, but as a home for the foremost 
American citizen and his family, and that, in the es- 
thetics of domestic architecture, local influences were 
most potent. All the Presidents except one, for the 
first thirty-six years of the republic's existence, were 
Virginia gentlemen ; so, although broadly following 
in treatment the Viceregal Lodge in Dublin, the 
President's House took on much of the character of 
the "great house" on a Virginia plantation. This 
will explain why, in their work of restoration, when 
the architects were confronted by some gap in their 
plans which could not be filled by reference to the 
early records of the house itself, they drew upon the 

[ii6] 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

material common to the Virginia mansions of the same 
period. 

By no means the least notable of their revivals was 
the recognition of the proper front of the building. 
For a half-century, and perhaps longer, its back door 
had been used as its main entrance, and most visitors 
had borne away the impression that that was the face 
its designer had intended it to present to the world. 
Nearly all the authoritative pictures helped to confirm 
this notion, by displaying the north side as confidently 
as the photographers in Venice take San Marco from 
the Piazza. The confusion of front and rear came 
about with other changes wrought by the increase of 
facilities for land transportation. The rural and sub- 
urban architecture of a century ago took great note 
of watercourses ; for in those days wheeled vehicles 
were rarer than now and vastly less comfortable, the 
saddle was unsociable, and most travel was by river and 
canal. Hence the finest houses were built, when prac- 
ticable, where they would not only command a pleas- 
ing view, but present their most picturesque aspect 
to the passing boats. Doubtless the site of the White 
House was chosen with reference to the bend which 
the Potooiac made opposite the center of the building, 
thus opening a view down to Alexandria and beyond. 
The river was broader then, and probably washed the 

[117] 



Walks About Washington 

outer edge of what was intended to be preserved for- 
ever as the President's Park. 

With the growing preference for land approaches, 
a good many Southern houses of the colonial type al- 
tered their habits, the White House among them ; 
the side which faced the street offered the easier 
entrance, and thus the back door gradually usurped 
the dignities of the front, and accordingly the grounds 
on that side were laid out with lawns, trees, and shrub- 
bery. Its outlook, also, is upon Lafayette Park, which, 
if sundry plans are carried through, will one day be 
faced on three sides with stately buildings, housing 
those executive Departments with which the President 
has to keep in closest touch. 

Though President Washington was never to occupy 
the White House, or even to see it after it was nearly 
enough finished for occupancy, he took the greatest 
interest in watching it go up, and, only a few weeks be- 
fore his death, went all over it with Mrs. Washington, 
thoroughly inspecting every part then accessible. He 
had borne a share in the Masonic ceremony of laying 
its corner-stone, and by his personal influence had 
induced the State of Virginia to advance a large sum 
of money at one particularly critical stage of the 
building operations ; so the old mansion may boast 
of having some honored association with every Presi- 

[ii8] 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

dent from the foundation of our Government till 
now. 

When John and Abigail Adams moved in, the scan- 
tiness of fuel and lights, and the necessity for devoting 
the east room to the humblest of domestic uses and 
converting an upstairs chamber into a salon, were not 
the only shortcomings in their environment. Surface 
drainage water from a considerable bit of high ground 
to the eastward had formed a turbid little creek which 
almost surrounded the mansion. There was no water 
fit to drink and of sufficient quantity to meet the daily 
needs of the President's family, short of a spring in 
an open tract which we now know as Franklin Square, 
about half a mile away, whence it was brought 
down In crude pipes. Beds of growing vegetables 
filled parts of the garden area where to-day we find 
well-kept lawns and ornamental shrubbery. The only 
way of reaching the south door from Pennsylvania 
Avenue was by a narrow footpath, on which the 
pedestrian took a variety of chances after dark. The 
streets surrounding the President's grounds were so 
deep in slush or mud for a large part of the year that, 
in order to keep their clothing fairly presentable, 
visitors were obliged to come in closed coaches ; and 
when the Adamses gave their first New Year's recep- 
tion, their guests, though so few that the oval room in 

[1191 



IValks About Washington 

the second story accommodated them, could not obtain 
in Washington enough suitable vehicles, and had to 
draw upon the livery stables in Baltimore. 

Adams was a well-bred and well-read man, reared 
in the best traditions of New England, including the 
sanctity of a pledge ; and, having promised his friend 
and predecessor, Washington, to do what he could 
toward building up a capital in fact as well as in name, 
he pocketed his petty discomforts and made the best 
of things. Among his other efforts to promote the 
popularity of the new city must be counted several 
dinners of exceptional excellence, at which Mrs. Adams 
presided with distinguished graciousness in a costume 
that, though it would strike us now as rather prim, 
was in keeping with her age and antecedents. The 
President, who was a rotund, florid man of middle 
height, appeared at these entertainments in a richly 
embroidered coat, silk stockings, shoes with huge silver 
buckles, and a powdered wig. These were concessions 
to the general demand for elegance of attire on the 
part of the chief magistrate, following the precedent 
established by Washington. They did not at all 
reflect Mr. Adams's preferences, for he was one 6i the 
plainest of men in his tastes, and his ordinary course 
of domestic life in the President's House was to ^e 
last degree unpretentious ; his luncheon, for example, 

[ 120 ] 



Old Carlyle Mansion, Alexandria 




X 






tr^^ 



SJf^ 



:^y 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

consisted usually of oatcake and lemonade, and one of 
his amusements was to play horse with a little grand- 
child, who used to drive him up and down the somber 
corridors with a switch. 

Albeit Adams and Jefferson became, late in life, 
the warmest of friends, no love was lost between them 
during the period when both were active in politics. 
Adams, who would have been gratified to receive, like 
Washington, a second term, was not disposed to "enact 
the captive chief in the procession of the victor," so 
he did not stay to see Jefferson inaugurated, but at 
daylight of the fourth of March, 1801, left Washing- 
ton for Boston. There was no need for such haste to 
escape, for Jefferson, as the high priest of democratic 
simplicity, had no procession ; though the cheerful 
little fiction about his riding down Pennsylvania Avenue 
alone, and hitching his horse to a sapling in front of 
the Capitol while he went in to be sworn, received its 
death-blow long ago. The truth is, he had no use 
for a horse. He was boarding in New Jersey Avenue, 
where he had lived for the latter part of his term as 
Vice-president. A few minutes before noon on inau- 
guration day he set out on foot, in company with sev- 
eral Congressmen who were his fellow boarders, and 
walked the block or so to the Capitol, where he was 
escorted by a committee to the Senate chamber and 

[ 121 ] 



Walks About Washington 

there took the oath of office and delivered his address. 
Then he walked back again to his boarding-house, and 
at dinner occupied his customary seat at the foot of 
the table. A visitor from Baltimore complimented 
him on his address and *' wished him joy" as President. 
"I should advise you," was his smiling response, "to 
follow my example on nuptial occasions, when I always 
tell the bridegroom that I will wait till the end of the 
year before offering my congratulations." 

The accommodations in the President's House were 
somewhat better by the time Mr. Jefferson moved in 
than they were when the Adams family opened it, yet 
he seems to have been more or less cramped during 
most of his two terms — owing, doubtless, to the con- 
tinued presence of mechanics and building materials 
in the incomplete parts of the house. When the Brit- 
ish Minister called in court costume to present his 
credentials, he was received, with his convoy the Sec- 
retary of State, in a space so narrow that he had to 
back out of one end of it to make room for the Presi- 
dent to enter at the other. One of the legation de- 
scribed Jefferson as "a tall man, with a very red, 
freckled face and gray, neglected hair; his manners 
were good natured and rather friendly, though he had 
somewhat of a cynical expression of countenance. He 
wore a blue coat, a thick, gray-colored hairy waistcoat 

[ 122 ] 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

with a red under-waistcoat lapped over it, green 
velveteen breeches with pearl buttons, yarn stockings 
with slippers down at the heels, his appearance being 
very much like that of a tall, raw-boned farmer." On 
the other hand, an admiring contemporary insists that 
his dress was "plain, unstudied and sometimes old- 
fashioned in its form," but "always of the finest 
materials," and that "in his personal habits he was 
fastidious and neat." So there you are ! 

A social being Jefferson certainly was. He liked 
company, and his former residence in France had cul- 
tivated his taste for the good things of the table, in- 
cluding light wines and olives. He once said that he 
considered olives the most precious gift of heaven to 
man, and he had them on his table whenever he could 
get them. He was also fond of figs and mulberries, 
and his household records bristle with purchases of 
crabs, pineapples, oysters, venison, partridges, and 
oranges — a pretty fair list for a man devoted to plain 
living. One of his hobbies as a host at very small 
and confidential dinners was to insure to his guests the 
utmost privacy, so he devised a scheme for dispensing 
as far as practicable with the presence of servants and 
avoiding the needless opening and closing of doors. 
Beside every chair was placed a small "dumb-waiter" 
containing all the desirable accessories, like fresh plates 

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Walks About Washington 

and knives and forks and finger-bowls ; while in a par- 
tition wall was hung a bank of circular shelves, so 
pivoted as to reverse itself at the pressure of a spring, 
the fresh viands entering the dining-room as the 
emptied platters swung around into the pantry. The 
company at table rarely exceeded four when this 
machinery was called into play. At big state dinners 
the usual array of servants did the waiting. 

The first great reception in Jefferson's administra- 
tion occurred on the fourth of July next following his 
inauguration. For some reason, possibly because the 
novelty of his sweeping invitation prevented its being 
generally understood by the populace, only about one 
hundred persons presented themselves. A luncheon 
was served, in the midst of which the Marine Band 
entered, playing the "President's March," or, as we 
call it, "Hail Columbia." The company fell in behind 
and joined in a grand promenade, with many evolu- 
tions, through the rooms and corridors of the ground 
floor, returning at last to the place whence they had 
started and resuming their feast of good things. 

As he was a widower when he succeeded Adams at 
the head of the Government, and it was not feasible, 
most of the time, for either of his daughters to preside 
over his public hospitalities, Jeflferson naturally turned 
for aid to Mrs. James Madison, wife of his Secretary of 

[ 124] 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

State. He despised empty precedent ; and when, at a 
diplomatic dinner, he led the way to the dining-room 
with Mrs. Madison instead of offering his arm to Mrs. 
Merry, wife of the British Minister and dean of the corps, 
he defied all the old-world canons. Mrs. Merry withdrew 
in high dudgeon, and her husband made the incident the 
subject of a communication to the Foreign Office in 
London. 

Dolly Madison's fondness for society counterbalanced 
the indifference of her husband — a little, apple-faced 
man with a large brain and pleasant manners but no 
presence, of whom every one spoke by his nickname, 
"Jemmy." She is described as a "fine, portly, buxom 
dame" with plenty of brisk small-talk. She knew 
little of books, but made a point of having one in her 
hand when she received guests who were given to lit- 
erature ; and she would have peeped enough into it 
to enable her to open conversation with a reference to 
something she had found there. One of the celebrities 
she entertained was Humboldt, the scientist, concern- 
ing whom she wrote: "We have lately had a great 
treat in the company of a charming Prussian baron. 
All the ladies say they are in love with him. He is 
the most polite, modest, well-informed, and interest- 
ing traveler we have ever met, and is much pleased with 
America." Another was Tom Moore, who, though 

[ 125 ] 



Walks About Washington 

embalming In verse some of the spiteful spirit he had 
absorbed from the Merrys, in later years recanted these 
utterances. 

As she was praised everywhere for the beauty of her 
complexion, it is disconcerting to learn from a candid 
biographer that Mrs. Madison was wont to heighten 
her color by external applications, and now and then, 
through an accident of the toilet, gave to her nose a 
rosy flush that was meant for her cheeks. We are told 
also that she was addicted to the fashionable snuff 
habit and kept always at hand a dainty little box 
made of platinum and lava, filled with her favorite 
brand of "Scotch," which she would freely use at 
social gatherings and then pass around the circle of 
diplomatists who assiduously danced attendance upon 
her. This indulgence accounted for her carrying 
everywhere two handkerchiefs : one a bandanna 
tucked away in her sleeve, whence she could draw 
it promptly for what she called "rough work," and 
the other a spider-web creation of lawn and lace, 
which she styled her "polisher" and wore pinned to 
her side. 

Besides the British Minister with his standing griev- 
ance, which he advertised by never bringing Mrs. 
Merry to the President's House after the fateful din- 
ner, we read of two other foreign envoys who used to 

[126] 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

appear there spouseless. One was Sidi Mellanelll, 
who, Dr. Samuel Mitchill tells us, "came from Tunis 
to settle some differences between that regency and our 
Government. He is to all appearance upward of fifty 
years old ; wears his beard and shaves his head after 
the manner of his country, and wears a turban instead 
of a hat. His dress consists simply of a short jacket, 
large, loose drawers, stockings, and slippers. When 
he goes abroad he throws a large hooded cloak over 
these garments ; it is of a peculiar cut and is called a 
bernous. The colors of his drawers and bernous are 
commonly red. He seldom walks, but almost always 
appears on horseback. He is a rigid Mohammedan ; 
he fasts, prays, and observes the precepts of the Koran. 
He talks much with the ladies, says he often thinks 
about his consort in Africa, and wonders how Congress- 
men can live a whole session without their wives.'' 

The other unaccompanied diplomat was the French 
Minister, General Turreau, a man of humble birth 
who had risen to some eminence during the recent 
revolution in his country. Having once been im- 
prisoned, he improved the opportunity to make love 
to his jailer's daughter and marry her; but he appears 
to have tired of his bargain, and it was no secret that 
they led a most inharmonious life. According to Sir 
Augustus Foster, he was in the habit of horsewhipping 

[ 127] 



Walks About Washington 

her to the accompaniment of a violoncello played by 
his secretary to drown her cries, and the scandalized 
neighbors had finally to interfere. Doctor Mitchill's 
version of the affair is that the Minister tried to send 
his wife back to France, and that, when she refused 
to leave and raised an outcry, a mob gathered at their 
house and enabled her to escape and go to live in peace- 
ful poverty in Georgetown. The Doctor has little to 
say of Turreau's ability, but dwells impressively on 
"the uncommon size and extent of his whiskers, which 
cover the greater part of his cheeks," and on the pro- 
fusion of lace with which his full-dress coat was deco- 
rated. 

Jerome Bonaparte, a younger brother of the first 
Napoleon, passed a good deal of time in Washington 
during the Jefferson administration and was one of the 
lions at the parties in the President's House. Meet- 
ing Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore, he suc- 
cumbed to her attractions and lost no time in suing 
for her hand. Her father was a bank president and 
one of the richest men in the United States, and the 
family, whose social position was unexceptionable, 
were far from having their heads turned by the pro- 
posed match, possibly feeling some misgivings as to 
future complications ; but the young people would 
listen to no argument and were married. Mr. Jeffer- 

[128] 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

son wrote at once to the American Minister at Paris, 
telling him to lay all the facts before the First Consul 
and to make it plain that in the United States any 
marriage was lawful which had been voluntarily entered 
into by two single parties of full age. Nevertheless, 
the great Napoleon did not hesitate to treat the mar- 
riage as void, and Jerome lacked manliness to defy his 
brother and fight the matter out ; but Mrs. Bonaparte, 
having spunk enough for two, stood up firmly for her 
rights as a wife to the end of her days, and commanded 
recognition for them everywhere outside of the imperial 
court. 

A friend of Jefferson's who came to Washington dur- 
ing his administration, and whose advent created not 
a little stir, was a man about seventy years of age, 
described as having "a red and rugged face which 
looks as if he had been much hackneyed in the service 
of the world," eyes "black and lively," a nose "some- 
what aquiline and pointing downward" which "corre- 
sponds in color with the fiery appearance of his cheeks," 
and a marked fondness for talk and anecdote. This 
was none other than Tom Paine, patriot, poet, polit- 
ical pamphleteer, and infidel. He was favorably 
remembered all over the United States for his writings 
in behalf of human rights, and for the leaflets and songs 
which had cheered the hearts of the Continental sol- 

[ 129 ] 



Walks About IVashifigton 

diers at the most discouraging pass in our War for 
Independence. After the Revolution, he had gone 
abroad as an apostle of popular liberty, and, though 
outlawed in England, had been permitted to cross to 
France to take his seat as a deputy in the proletariat 
National Assembly. There, among other acts which 
won him commendation, he raised his voice and cast 
his vote against the resolution which sent Louis XVI 
to the guillotine. 

Appreciating his services to this country and also 
strongly sympathizing with the French type of democ- 
racy, Jefferson had invited Paine to come back to 
his native land in a United States war-ship ; and the 
Federalist newspapers seized their chance to make 
partisan capital by parading Paine's religious heter- 
odoxy and charging Jefferson with having brought 
him home to undermine the morals of our people. 
Jefferson had considerable difficulty in counteracting 
the effects of the accusation, for his own opinions had 
been for a good while under fire, and it was not a day 
of nice distinctions. Probably in this more tolerant 
age a man like Paine would be given due credit for his 
practical benevolence even when mixed with a hatred 
of ecclesiasticism, and Jefferson would find himself 
not out of place in the Unitarian fold. 

When Jefferson was not occupied with affairs of state 

[ 130] 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

or entertaining visitors, he was fond of sitting in what 
he called his "cabinet" — a room which he had fitted 
up to suit his own fancy. The rest of the house was 
rather unhomelike. The east room was still unfinished, 
and through the others were strewn articles of furni- 
ture which, though good in their way, were not espe- 
cially suggestive of comfort ; many of them were relics 
of the Washington regime, brought from Philadelphia. 
But in the cabinet stood a long table with drawers on 
each side, filled with things dear to their owner's 
heart. One contained books with inscriptions from 
their authors ; another, letters and manuscripts ; a 
third, a set of carpenter's tools for his amusement on 
rainy days ; a fourth, some small gardening imple- 
ments, and so on. Around the walls were maps, charts, 
and shelves laden with standard literature. Flowers 
and potted plants were everywhere, and in the midst 
of a bower of these hung the cage of his pet mocking- 
bird ; but the door of the cage was rarely shut when 
the President was in the room, for he loved to have the 
bird fly about freely, perch on his shoulder, and take 
its food from his lips. 

As may be guessed, the sponsor for this greenery 
was fond of all growing things. Jefferson was often 
seen walking about the embryo city, watching the work- 
men digging or building, but manifesting a special 

[131] 



Walks About Washington 

interest in tree-planting and ornamental gardening. 
He tried to induce Congress to vote enough money 
to beautify the grounds around the President's House, 
but in vain ; the most he could do was to enclose 
the yard with a common stone wall and seed it down 
to grass. Among the plans he prepared but was 
obliged to abandon was the adornment of these grounds 
exclusively with trees, shrubs, and flowers indigenous 
to American soil. He must be credited with the first 
attempt ever made in Washington to establish a zoo- 
logical park ; Lewis and Clarke, the explorers, brought 
him from the West a few grizzly bears, for which 
he built a pen in the yard. He also made the first 
move to furnish Pennsylvania Avenue with shade 
trees. His preference was for willow-oaks ; but he 
started four rows of Lombardy poplars to take advan- 
tage of their rapid growth till the slower oaks matured. 
One of his hobbies was to improve the market garden- 
ing of the neighborhood by distributing new varieties 
of vegetable seeds obtained through the American 
consuls in foreign countries, and instructing his steward 
always to buy the best home-grown table delicacies at 
the highest retail prices. 

At Madison's inauguration in 1809, Jefferson not 
only did not imitate the ungraciousness of Adams eight 
years before, but went to the opposite extreme, declin- 

[132] 



Washington s Pew in Christ Church, Alexandria 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

ing Madison's invitation to drive to the Capitol in the 
Presidential coach lest he might divide the honors 
which he felt belonged exclusively to the President- 
elect. Madison had what was then deemed a wonder- 
ful procession of military and civic organizations, and 
turned the occasion into the first "made-in-America" 
gala day, wearing himself a complete suit of clothing 
made by an American tailor, of cloth woven on Ameri- 
can looms from the wool of American sheep. Jeffer- 
son, clad in one like it, modestly waited till the pro- 
cession had passed and then rode to the Capitol alone, 
not even a servant following to care for his horse. On 
entering the Hall of Representatives, he declined 
the chair reserved for him near Madison's but joined 
the ordinary spectators, saying: "To-day I return 
to the people, and my proper seat is among them." 
At the close of the ceremony, he mounted his horse 
again and rode up the Avenue unattended, till George/ 
Custis, also mounted, joined him, and they went to- 
gether to the Madisons' house. 

Here a crowd of friends had gathered to welcome in 
the new administration. Mr. Madison's emotions 
had been a good deal stirred by what had passed 
at the Capitol, but his manner was affable. His wife 
was all herself as usual. She was attired in a plain 
cambric dress with a very long train, and a bonnet of 

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Walks About Washington 

purple velvet and white satin, adorned with white 
plumes. Jefferson seems to have been, for such time 
as he stayed, quite as much the lion of the occasion as 
his successor. Presently he slipped quietly away and 
went over to the President's House, where the empty 
halls echoed to his footsteps ; for he had given all the 
servants a holiday so that they could see the show. 
But he did not remain long alone ; the news spread 
among his old friends that he had gone back to bid his 
home of eight years farewell, and they followed him 
after a little. In the evening he went to the in- 
augural ball — the first ever held, and the only 
ball of any sort he had attended since his return from 
France. 

From all accounts it was not a highly enjoyable 
affair. The room was so crowded that it was difficult 
to elbow one's way across it ; nobody could see what 
was going on without standing on a chair ; the air 
became stifling, and when an attempt was made to 
freshen it by letting down the upper sashes of the 
windows, they would not move, so nothing was left 
but to smash the glass. Mrs. Madison was almost 
crushed to death ; Madison was so tired that he con- 
fessed to a friend that he wished he were abed ; and as 
soon as supper was over, the Presidential party with- 
drew. The younger set stayed and danced till mid- 

[ 134 ] 



" The Other End of the Avenue " , 

night, when, at the stroke, the music ceased and the 
attendants began to put out the Hghts. 

The social success achieved by Dolly Madison as 
official hostess through so large a part of Jefferson's 
administration did not wane when, with the rise of 
her husband to the head of the Government, she came 
into her own by right instead of by courtesy. Her 
first term as mistress of the President's House was a 
continuous blaze of gayety, in which we catch fleeting 
glimpses of her in a variety of toilets, the most truly 
typical being a buff velvet gown with pearl ornaments 
and a Paris turban topped with a bird-of-paradise 
plume. Then came the second war with Great Britain 
and the wrecking of the city. 

When the British approached Bladensburg, and the 
improvised home-guard of Washington went out to 
engage them in battle, Mr. Madison permitted his 
military advisers to persuade him that, after seeing the 
stiffness of the American resistance, the British would 
withdraw. His wife caught the infection of confidence, 
and together they planned to celebrate the victory by 
a dinner to the officers on the evening after the battle. 
The table was spread by three in the afternoon, when 
Mrs. Madison, who had been listening with composure 
to the distant boom of cannon, was dismayed to see 
a lot of demoralized American soldiers running in from 

[135] 



IValks About Washington 

the north by twos and threes. Her sudden fears 
were confirmed when one of her colored servants 
galloped up to the door, shouting: "Clear out! Clear 
out ! General Armstrong has ordered a retreat I " 
Then a few friends came over to insist on her seeking 
safety in flight. They helped her to fill a wagon with 
such valuables as were not too heavy ; but she pro- 
voked their indignation by waiting till the oil portrait 
of General Washington attributed to Stuart, which 
hangs in the White House to-day, could be cut out of 
its frame and "placed in the hands of two gentlemen 
from New York for safe keeping." 

We have already seen how the Capitol and other 
public buildings were burned. A particularly vicious 
scheme v/as worked out to assure the destruction of the 
President's House, because of Mr. Madison's personal 
share in the dispute which led to the war. Indeed, 
it was the hope of the invaders to find him and his wife 
at home and take them captive, so as to humiliate 
the American Government and people and thus impress 
a lesson for the future. By way of a reconnoiter, 
Admiral Cockburn went to the mansion and looked 
through it, taking with him as a hostage a young 
gentleman of the city, named Weightman. In the 
dining-room they found everything prepared for the 
dinner of triumph, and Cockburn ordered his compan- 

[136] 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

ion to sit down with him and "drink Jemmy's health." 
Then he bade Weightman help himself to a mantel 
ornament as a souvenir of the day. "I must take 
something, too," he added, and with great hilarity 
tucked under his arm an old hat of the President's and 
a cushion from Mrs. Madison's chair. 

When all was ready, a detachment of fifty sailors 
and marines were marched in silence up Pennsylvania 
Avenue, every man carrying a long pole with a ball of 
combustible material attached to the top of it. Ar- 
rived at the mansion, the balls were lighted, and the 
poles rested each against a window. At a command 
from their officer, the pole-bearers struck their windows 
simultaneously a hard blow, smashing the glass and 
hurling the fire-balls into the rooms with a single 
motion ; and the little group of lookers-on beheld an 
outburst of flame from every part of the building at 
once. 

x^t the Octagon House, where they passed some 
months after their return to Washington, the Madi- 
sons were surrounded by the same friends who had 
enjoyed the hospitalities of the President's House be- 
fore the fire. It was not, however, till they removed 
to the dwelling at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue 
and Nineteenth Street that Mrs. Madison was able 
to entertain on the scale she desired. The house was 

[ 137] 



Walks About Washington 

one of the most commodious in town, and for any fine 
function the whole of it was thrown open. This was 
done on the occasion of the levee of February, 1816, 
which was universally pronounced the most splendid 
witnessed in the United States up to that time. The 
illumination extended from garret to cellar, much of it 
coming from pine torches held aloft by slaves specially 
drilled to maintain statuesque attitudes against the 
walls and at the heads of staircases. Mrs. Madison's 
toilet of rose-tinted satin was set off with a girdle, 
necklace, and bracelets of gold, and a gold-embroidered 
crown. It may have been this last adornment which 
suggested to Sir George Bagot, the new British 
Minister, his comment that "Mrs, Madison looks every 
inch a queen." The compliment promptly spread 
over Washington, where for some time thereafter the 
President's wife was constantly referred to as "the 
Queen." 

This levee was in the nature of a farewell, for on the 
fourth of the next month President Madison made 
way for his successor, James Monroe, whose inaugu- 
ration was the first ever held in the open air. The 
innovation was due to a quarrel between the two 
chambers of Congress, which was then occupying its 
temporary quarters opposite the east grounds of the 
Capitol. A/[onroe had arranged to take the oath in the 

[138I 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

Hall of Representatives ; but the Senators found fault 
with the seats set apart for them, the Representatives 
were stubborn, and a deadlock seemed imminent, 
when Monroe suggested as a compromise that a plat- 
form be raised in front of the building, and that the 
ceremony take place there, where all the people could 
witness it. Thus began what came to be known as 
"the era of good feeling." 

How class consciousness prevailed in those days is 
amusingly illustrated by Monroe's resentment of the 
foreign conception of Americans. "People in Europe," 
he had once said to the French Minister, while Sec- 
retary of State under Madison, "suppose us to be 
merchants occupied exclusively with pepper and ginger. 
They are much deceived. The immense majority of 
our citizens do not belong to this class, and are, as 
much as your Europeans, controlled by principles of 
honor and dignity. I never knew what trade was ; 
the President was as much a stranger to it as I." Per- 
haps it was because he knew so little about trade that 
he took pains to cultivate its acquaintance as soon as 
he became President. He made a grand tour of the new 
West, staying away from Washington more than four 
months and visiting especially the commercial centers, 
where he showed himself to the people as much as 
possible. He invited some criticism by making his 

[ 139] 



Walks About Washington 

tour in the buff-and-blue uniform of the Continental 
soldiery of forty years before, cocked hat and all ; but 
his friends always contended that this appeal to 
patriotism vastly increased his popularity and went 
far to account for his wonderful success in his campaign 
for reelection in 1820, when he captured all the elec- 
toral votes except one. 

The period covered by the last few pages brought 
to Washington two great men, whose share in shap- 
ing the history of the United States was such as to 
warrant our pausing to take a closer look at them. 
These were Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Clay 
was probably the most popular man in our public life 
from Washington's time to Lincoln's, and his legisla- 
tive career was unique both in its beginning and in its 
ending. He came to Washington first to fill a vacancy 
caused by the death of a Kentucky Senator, and held 
this position for several months while he was still too 
young to be eligible under the Constitution, because 
nobody was disposed to inquire into the years of one 
who possessed so mature a mind. Both before and 
after this experience he served in the Kentucky legis- 
lature, where, on account of an insult received in 
debate, he challenged its author and "winged" him 
in a duel. When the Twelfth Congress was about to 
meet, with every prospect that John Randolph and 

[ 140] 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

his little coterie were going to make trouble in the 
House, a demand arose for a Speaker who would be 
able to cope with the turbulent element. Clay had 
just been elected a Representative, and his prowess 
as a duelist drew all eyes in his direction. "Harry 
Clay can keep Randolph in order," declared his Ken- 
tucky neighbors, "and he is the only man who can!" 
On this ground, then, he was elected Speaker before 
he had actually taken his seat in the House. He was 
the first man ever thus honored ; and he was, I be- 
lieve, the only one who ever made two formal farewells 
to the Senate. The first, preliminary to his resigna- 
tion in 1842, appears among the classics of American 
eloquence; but, as he was sent back in 1849, he had 
the chance, rarely accorded any one except a histrionic 
star, to bow himself off the stage a second time. 

During the years of his greatest activity, every 
announcement that he was to speak made a gala day 
at the Capitol. "The gallery was full," wrote Mar- 
garet Bayard Smith of one such occasion, "to a 
degree that endangered it ; even the outer entries 
were thronged. The gentlemen are grown very gal- 
lant and attentive, and, as it was impossible to reach 
the ladies through the gallery, a new mode was invented 
for supplying them with oranges, etc. They tied them 
up in handkerchiefs, to each of which was fixed a note 

[141] 



Walks About Washington 

indicating for whom it was designed, and then fast- 
ened to a long pole. This was taken on the floor of 
the house and handed up to the ladies who sat in the 
front of the gallery. These presentations were fre- 
quent and quite amusing, even in the midst of Mr. 
Clay's speech. I and the ladies near me divided what 
was brought with each other, and were as social as if 
acquainted." 

The orator who could hold his own against such a 
background of confusion might well take pride in his 
powers ; but the universal testimony was that Clay's 
wonderfully modulated voice and magnetic charm of 
personality triumphed over everything. He was so 
attractive a man that even Calhoun, with whom he 
was at swords-drawn in every forensic battle, could 
not forbear wringing his hand with a "God bless you !" 
at their final parting in the Senate chamber ; and 
John Randolph, with whom he had clashed repeatedly 
and whose coat he had punctured in a duel, insisted 
on being carried to the Capitol, while dying, and laid 
on a couch where Clay was going to deliver a much- 
heralded speech. Possibly one of the secrets of Clay's 
success in winning people was illustrated in his quarrel 
with Senator King of Alabama, which began on the 
Senate floor and led to the passage of a challenge. 
Friends interfered, and after some days a peace was 

[ 142] 



Mount Vernon 




^'"i:""^^^^ 



/^y^^ 



" The Other End of the Avenue " 

patched up, both men pubHcly withdrawing their 
offensive remarks, and a brother Senator making 
some appropriate gratulatory observations on the 
reconcihation. Then Clay gave the final dramatic 
touch to the scene by crossing the chamber to where 
his late adversary sat, saying aloud: "King, give me 
a pinch of your snuff!" King, surprised, sprang up 
and held out both a snuff-box and an open hand, while 
Senators and spectators applauded to the echo. 

Clay was a slimly built man who always appeared 
for action clad in a solemn suit of black, with a claw-ham- 
mer coat, a stiff silk stock, and a huge white "choker" 
with pointed ears. His face was spare and his forehead 
high, his cheekbones were prominent, the nose between 
them was slender and forceful, and the mouth wide, 
thin-lipped, and straight-cut. His lank hair, natu- 
rally of a tawny hue, became early streaked with gray 
and was worn long enough to fringe his coat collar. 
He was approachable in manner, had a most genial 
smile, and was ready with a pleasant response to every 
greeting, its effect being intensified by its musical 
clarity of enunciation. He was distinctly fond of 
society and especially enjoyed a game of cards. Al- 
though his wife accompanied him to Washington, she 
appeared little with him in public. She was a good 
woman with few gifts, but a devoted mother, and her 

[1431 



Walks About Washington 

chief joy in life was to sew for her six children. Wher- 
ever he went, Mr. Clay was always surrounded by a 
circle of adoring women, who hung upon every word 
of the many he uttered as he talked in desultory style 
with his back against a sofa-cushion. He followed a 
free fashion of his time in taking toll from the lips of 
all the young and pretty maidens he met. The first 
time he saw Dolly Madison, her youthful face and 
dainty dress misled him into saluting her in this fash- 
ion. On discovering his mistake, "Ah, madam," 
he pleaded gallantly, "had I known you for whom you 
are, the coin would have been larger!" 

I may add in passing that the American navy owes 
its monitor type of fighting-craft largely to Henry 
Clay. Theodore Timby, who invented the revolving 
turret which Ericsson used during the Civil War, 
came to Washington bearing a letter of introduction 
to Clay, who became interested in the idea and helped 
him get the patent without which it might have been 
lost to the world. 

Webster was cast in quite a different mold from 
Clay. He was godlike where Clay was human ; his 
eloquence overwhelmed his hearers where Clay's fas- 
cinated them. He had a big head, a big frame, a 
big voice, a big presence, Emerson speaks of his 
"awful charm." Some one who heard him condemn 

[ 144] 



" The Other End of the Avenue '' 

the dishonest gains of a certain financial institution, 
says that the word "disgorge," as he uttered it, 
"seemed to weigh about twelve pounds." Once Mrs. 
Webster brought their little son to hear his father 
deliver an oration. Daniel began a sentence in his 
thunder-tone : "Will any man dare say — " and the 
audience were waiting breathless to hear what was 
coming next, when a wee, piping voice responded from 
the gallery: "Oh, no, no. Papa!" 

His greatest effort in Congress, of course, was his 
reply to Hayne. Everybody in Washington was eager 
to hear it, and galleries and floor, including the platform 
on which the Vice-president sat, were crowded to the 
last limit. Representative Lewis of Alabama, being 
unable to gain access to the hall, climbed around be- 
hind the wooden framework which flanked the plat- 
form and bored a hole through it with his pocket-knife 
in order to get a view of the great expounder. At a 
levee that evening at the White House, Webster was 
besieged by admirers offering congratulations. Among 
the crowd that drew near him at one time happened 
to be Hayne himself. "How are you. Colonel Hayne V 
was Webster's greeting. "None the better for you, 
sir," answered Hayne, good humoredly but with sin- 
cere feeling. 

We are treated to another picture of him when he 

[145] 



Walks About IVashifigton 

arrived late at a concert given by Jenny Lind. For 
the benefit of the statesmen who were present, Miss 
Lind, for an encore, sang "Hail Columbia." Web- 
ster, who had been dining, was on his feet in an in- 
stant and added his powerful bass voice to hers in the 
chorus. Mrs. Webster did all she could to induce 
him to sit down, but he repeated his effort at the close 
of every verse, and with the last strain made the song- 
stress a profound obeisance, waving his hat at the 
same time. Miss Lind curtsyed in return, Webster 
repeated his bow, and this little comedy of etiquette 
was kept up for some minutes, to the delight of the 
audience. 



[146] 



CHAPTER VI 
THROUGH MANY CHANGING YEARS 

WITH the advent of the Monroes, social life at 
the President's House underwent a transfor- 
mation. Its character could have been forecast from 
the fact that, although for the six years Monroe had 
been at the head of the Cabinet his family had been 
with him in Washington, they were as nearly strangers 
to the great body of citizens as if they had been living 
in New York or Boston. If a lady wished to call on 
Mrs. Monroe, she had to apply for an appointment 
and have a day and hour fixed, unless she were a mem- 
ber or intimate of some former Presidential family. 
In this administration, too, was born to Washington 
its first formal code of social precedence, which, with 
certain modifications in detail, has remained unchanged 
to this day. It differs from the codes of other Amer- 
ican communities in having official rank as a basis. 
John Quincy Adams, before becoming Secretary of 
State, had served at various times as envoy to five Eu- 
ropean courts. He was therefore ripe with information 

[147] 



Walks About Washington 

on the rules observed abroad and resolved on bring- 
ing something of the same sort into operation at our 
capital. 

Mrs. Monroe and her daughters made it an abso- 
lute rule to pay no visits ; so calls made on them, 
no matter by whom, went unreturned. Their dislike 
of the underbred caused them to take no part in 
the preparations for the general levees, which were 
thronged with anybody and everybody ; but their 
invitation list for select receptions was cut down 
mercilessly, and the reduced company were treated 
to supper, an innovation on recent practices. At all 
such entertainments Mrs. Monroe was so exacting in 
her demands as to dress that when one of her near rel- 
atives presented himself in an informal costume which 
he had worn without criticism at the best of the Jef- 
ferson and Madison functions, she refused him admit- 
tance till he should don the regulation small-clothes 
and silk hose. 

The Monroes renamed the east room "the banquet- 
ing hall" and had their state dinners there, partly 
because of its spaciousness, and partly because the 
dining-room had been so badly damaged in the fire 
that it took a long time to rehabilitate. The table 
appointments included a central oval "plateau" twelve 
feet long by two feet wide, composed of a mirror 

[148] 



Through Many Changing Years 

"surrounded by gold females holding candlesticks." 
The china was highly gilt, and the dessert knives, forks, 
and spoons were of beaten gold. All the plate was the 
private property of the family and bore the initials 
"J. M." ; much of it was afterward purchased by the 
Government and made a part of the official furnishing 
of the White House, where it remained in use down to 
Van Buren's day. 

A New York Representative went with some friends 
to dine with the Monroes. Arriving at half-past five, 
his party were "ushered, Indian file, into the drawing- 
room," where they found "some twenty gentlemen 
seated in a row in solemn state, mute as fishes, having 
already undergone the ceremony of introduction." 
And he goes on : 

"Mrs. Monroe was seated at the further end of the 
room, with other ladies. On our approach, she rose 
and received us handsomely. After being myself 
presented, I introduced the other gentlemen. I now 
expected to be led to the President, but my pilot, 
the private secretary, had vanished. We beat a re- 
treat, each to his respective chair. Observing the 
President sitting very demurely by the chimney- 
corner, I arose and advanced to him. He got up and 
shook me by the hand, as he did the other gentlemen. 
This second ceremony over, all again was silence, and 

[ 149] 



If^alks About W^ashington 

each once more moved to his seat. It was a period 
of great solemnity. Not a whisper broke upon the 
ear to interrupt the silence of the place, and every one 
looked as if the next moment would be his last. After 
a while the President, in a grave manner, began con- 
versation with some one that sat near him, and directly 
the secretary ushered in some more victims, who 
submitted to the same ordeal we had experienced. 
This continued for fully half an hour, when dinner 
was announced. It became more lively as the dishes 
rattled." The party remained at table till about 
half-past eight. 

The retirement of Monroe marked the end of "the 
Virginia dynasty." It had always been a sore point 
with John Adams that the highest office of the Gov- 
ernment should be passed from hand to hand in the 
Old Dominion, and he once threw out the splenetic 
comment that not "until the last Virginian was laid 
in the graveyard" would his son have a chance at 
the Presidency. The son had been trained with 
reference to such an inheritance, and, on becoming 
Monroe's Secretary of State, regarded himself as in 
the line of succession. His appearance as a Presiden- 
tial candidate, however, aroused no general enthu- 
siasm, whereas General Andrew Jackson, having given 
the finishing stroke to the defeat of the British invaders 

[150] 



Through Many Changing Years 

by his victory over Pakenham, and acquired the nick- 
name "Old Hickory," had become the idol of the 
multitude. In spite of their approaching competition 
for the Presidency, Adams was obliged to recognize 
Jackson's prestige at every turn ; and on the eighth 
of January, 1824, Mrs. Adams gave a ball in the Gen- 
eral's honor which was so grand that it was still talked 
of in Washington fifty years afterward. 

The Adams house stood on the site now occupied 
by the Adams office building in F Street near Four- 
teenth. On this occasion the floor of the ballroom 
was decorated with pictures in colored chalks. The 
central design, which portrayed an American eagle 
clutching a trophy of flags, bore the legend: "Wel- 
come to the Hero of New Orleans !" The pillars were 
trimmed with laurel and other winter foliage, roses 
were scattered everywhere, and the illumination was 
furnished by variegated lamps, with a brilliant luster 
in the middle of the ceiling. There were eight pieces 
of music. Mrs. Adams was seated in the center of 
the hall, with Jackson standing at her side and a semi- 
circle of distinguished guests behind them. President 
Monroe and Mr. Adams attended, but both were 
conspicuous for their sobriety of attire. It was this 
gathering which inspired a tribute in verse by a local 
journalist, beginning : 

[151] 



Walks About Washington 

" Wend you with the world to-night ? 
Brown and fair, and wise and witty, 
Eyes that float in seas of Hght, 

Laughing mouths and dimples pretty, 

Belles and matrons, maids and madams, 
All are gone to Mrs. Adams ! " 

Nine months later, Jackson polled a far larger pop- 
ular vote for the Presidency than Adams, and so dis- 
tributed as to give him a lead in the electoral colleges 
also. But as there were four candidates, none of whom 
had a clear majority of the electoral vote, the deci- 
sion was left to the House of Representatives, where 
Henry Clay, the candidate at the bottom of the list, 
threw his support to Adams, giving him the office. 
Adams recognized his debt to Clay by appointing him 
Secretary of State, and thus placing him in the line 
of promotion. Jackson never forgave Clay for his 
share In electing Adams, and from that day forth had 
nothing to do with him beyond the coolest exchange 
of civilities. In other respects the General accepted 
defeat philosophically, attending the inaugural cere- 
monies and promptly coming forward to congratulate 
the new President, an act of grace that brought tears 
to the eyes of Adams. The appearance of the two 
men together in public delighted the crowd, and there 
was vociferous hurrahing for Jackson. Judged solely 

[152] 



Through Many Changing Years 

by appearances, indeed, the day was a festival in honor 
of Jackson rather than of Adams. Many of the Gen- 
eral's friends had come a long distance, in an era when 
traveling was so slow that they had been obliged to 
leave home before learning the final outcome of the 
election, and supposed that they were to attend the 
inauguration of their favorite. They sought solace 
for their disappointment in turbulent demonstrations. 
For the whole afternoon the dramshops carried on a 
tremendous business, and all night the streets were 
full of tramping men roaring out Jackson campaign 
songs and silencing opposition with their fists. Pis- 
tol shots were heard at frequent intervals, and a rumor 
spread that Henry Clay had been killed. 

Whatever Adams may have thought of these exhibi- 
tions, he bore them with a calm exterior. He was 
always indifferent to criticism, and became famous as 
the most shabbily clad man who had ever occupied 
the Presidential chair, being accused even of having 
worn the same hat for ten years. He braved public 
opinion by setting up a billiard table in the White 
House, which gave a North Carolina Representative 
a text for a speech denouncing the expenditure of 
fifty dollars for the table and six dollars for a set of 
balls as "alarming to the religious, the moral, and the 
reflecting portion of the community." The anti- 

[153] 



(/ 



Walks About Washington 

administration press, using the game of billiards as 
a theme, opened fire upon the President as a gambler. 
For a fact, he never made but one bet in his life. Clay 
had picked up at auction a picture which Adams 
tried to buy of him. One day, in jest. Clay offered 
it as a stake for a game of all-fours. To his aston- 
ishment, Adams, the supposed ascetic, took him up, 
and won the game and the picture. 

It was a habit of Adams to take a plunge in the 
Potomac, at the foot of his garden, every morning 
"between daybreak and sunrise," the weather per- 
mitting. Once he had all his clothing stolen, and had 
to catch a passing boy and send him home for enough 
raiment to cover him. But this was by no means 
his most embarrassing adventure. It was during his 
administration that the first woman newspaper corre- 
spondent turned up in Washington. She was resolved 
to procure an interview with the President, who did 
not care to gratify her. So she rose early one morn- 
ing and repaired, notebook and pencil in hand, to the 
river bank, and planted herself beside his clothes till 
he started to come out. Standing almost neck-deep 
in the water, he tried first severity and then persuasion 
to induce her to go away, but she held her ground 
till he surrendered and answered her most important 
questions. 

[154] 



Tudor House, Grorgetnwn 




r 






.^f //^^/ , 



^^f^^^K. 






Through Many Changing Years 

^^ The billiard table was not the only basis for charges 
of prodigal living brought against Adams. When he 
ran for reelection, his enemies made effective use of 
a letter written by a member of Congress who had 
attended a New Year's reception at the White House 
and who mentioned the "gorgeously furnished east 
room." The truth was that the east room, except for 
three marble-topped tables and a few mirrors, did not 
contain fifty dollars' worth of furniture of any sort. 
A Washingtonian of the period has written that there 
were no chandeliers, and that the great room depended 
for its lighting on candles held in tin candlesticks nailed 
to the wall, which "dripped their sperm upon the 
clothes of those who came under them, as I well know 
from experience." 

Adams sometimes aroused personal hostility by his 
peppery temper. He had to dine with him one eve- 
ning a Southern Senator who was notorious for his dis- 
like of everything in New England but prided himself 
on his knowledge of wines. The Senator had the bad 
manners to remark that he had "never known a Uni- 
tarian who did not believe in the sea-serpent." This 
aroused the ire of Adams, who later, when his guest 
said that Tokay and Rhine wine were somewhat alike, 
turned upon him with the exclamation: "Sir, I do 
not believe that you ever drank a drop of Tokay in 

[1551 



IValks About Washington 

your life!" He afterward apologized, but the Sena- 
tor would not accept the apology and became the 
implacable foe of his administration. 

Jackson's election in 1828 was a foregone conclu- 
sion from the moment he reappeared as a Presidential 
candidate ; and, immediately upon the announcement 
that he had won an electoral vote a good deal more 
than double that of Adams, Washington became the 
Mecca of a hundred pilgrimages. By the fourth of 
March, 1829, the city was so crowded with worship- 
ers of the President-elect that they overflowed the 
inns and boarding-houses, and many were obliged to 
live in camp. Half the men wore their trousers tucked 
into their boot-legs, and not a few carried pistols 
openly in their belts. The hickory emblem was in 
evidence everywhere : men wielded hickory canes and 
staffs, women wore bonnets trimmed with hickory 
leaves and necklaces composed of hickory nuts fanci- 
fully painted, and scores of horses were driven with 
bridles of hickory bark. 

Like his father, Adams did not attend the inaugura- 
tion of his successor ; he withdrew to a hired dwelling 
on the heights north of the city and kept to himself 
till the flurry was over. Probably Jackson did not 
regret his absence, for the campaign had been sur- 
charged with bitter personalities, into which the name 

[156] 



Through Many Changing Years 

of Mrs. Jackson was remorselessly dragged. Mrs. 
Jackson had died since election day, and the General 
believed her death the direct result of calumny. 

Madison had set the fashion, and Monroe and Adams 
had improved upon it, of having a formal escort to the 
Capitol on the way to inauguration. Jackson, how- 
ever, refused to follow custom. As the only militia 
organization in the city was under command of a 
colonel who hated him, he had no military display, but 
walked down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue with 
only a body-guard composed of veterans of the War 
of the Revolution, then a half-century past. For 
any lack of enthusiasm on the part of the resident 
population, that of the visiting Jacksonians more than 
compensated. All the way the General and his little 
party were so surrounded by a yelling, cheering crowd 
that they could advance only at a snail's pace. To 
watchers on Capitol Hill he was distinguishable from 
the mob by being the one man in the midst of it who 
walked bareheaded. 

Jackson was the first President to take the oath 
of office on the east portico of the Capitol, the place 
now generally used. He also was the first to read 
his speech before being sworn. He wore two pairs of 
spectacles, — a pair for looking at the crowd and a 
pair for reading ; when he was using one pair, the 

[157] 



Walks About Washington 

other was perched aloft on his forehead. At the close 
of the exercises, he mounted a fine white horse and rode 
to the White House, again having to make his way 
through a mass of singing and shouting admirers. At 
the mansion a feast had been provided, and the gates 
thrown open to every one. The building was soon 
stuffed full ; and, as the people waiting outside could 
hardly hope to force their way in, negro servants came 
to the doors with buckets of punch and salvers of 
cakes and ices and passed these out. Much of the 
food and drink was wasted, and much china and glass- 
ware smashed. Women fainted, men quarreled and 
bruised one another's faces. At one stage the door- 
ways became so blocked that people coming out had 
to climb through the windows and drop to the ground. 
The rabble inside, bent on shaking the hand of the 
President, jammed him against a wall to the serious 
peril of his ribs, till he succeeded in escaping through 
a back entry and taking refuge in the hotel where he 
had lately had his lodgings. 

The boisterous incidents of his first day in office 
were only an earnest of the stormy administration 
which lay before Jackson. Realizing how much he was 
indebted to New York for his election, and that Mar- 
tin Van Buren had a powerful following there, he ap- 
pointed Van Buren his Secretary of State. This 

[158] 



Through Many Changing Years 

proved a pretty lucky investment in human nature ; 
for in the Peggy Eaton controversy, which broke out 
soon after Jackson began his term, Van Buren was a 
valuable ally. General John H. Eaton, a lifelong friend 
whom Jackson had appointed Secretary of War, had 
been boarding for several years with a local tavern- 
keeper named O'Neal. The publican's daughter, 
Peggy, had grown up a pretty, but pert and forward 
girl, who flirted with her father's patrons and married 
one of them. Purser Timberlake of the navy. Timber- 
lake was addicted to drink, and during one of his cruises 
he ended a spree by suicide, leaving his wife and chil- 
dren destitute ; and Eaton, whose name gossip had 
already linked with the widow's, came to the front 
with an offer of marriage, which was accepted. 

The wedding followed so closely upon the tragedy 
as to cause wide criticism, and this, together with her 
antecedents, condemned Mrs. Eaton to social ostra- 
cism. Left to themselves, Eaton's colleagues of the 
Cabinet would have ignored the circumstances of his 
marriage, but the ladies of their families declared that 
they would have nothing to do with the bride. Van 
Buren, as a widower with no daughters, felt free to 
act as he pleased ; and Jackson, remembering what 
his own wife had endured, gallantly espoused the 
cause of Mrs. Eaton and gave the hostile Secretaries 

[iS9l 



Walks About Washington 

their choice between accepting her or resigning their 
portfoHos, whereupon the Cabinet went promptly to 
pieces. 

Being a man of means, Van Buren did a good deal 
of entertaining for Mrs. Eaton's benefit, and also in- 
spired those members of the diplomatic corps who were 
unaccompanied by ladies to join him in "floating'* 
her. The British Minister was a bachelor, so was the 
Russian Minister ; but, though the dinners and balls 
which they gave attracted many feminine guests who 
were flattered by being invited, they were not wholly 
successful. Madam Huygens, wife of the Dutch 
Minister, for instance, was induced to attend a ball, 
but when escorted to the supper table found that she 
was expected to sit next but one to Mrs. Eaton and 
would have to exchange a few words with that lady. 
Instantly she placed her arm in that of her husband and 
withdrew with him from the room. When the story 
was told to Jackson, he rose in his wrath and declared 
that he would send Huygens home to Holland ; but 
he never carried out the threat. 

Viewed in historical perspective, Jackson appears 
to have been a man of tremendous force, thoroughly 
patriotic, conscientious in even his most wayward 
conceptions of duty, unlearned but not illiterate, and 
above all things hating treachery. He handled the 

[i6o] 



Through Many Changing Years 

sword with more facility than the pen, and some of 
his correspondence, reproduced with its crudities of 
syntax and spelling, would make the better educated 
angels weep. Conscious of his scholastic shortcomings, 
he rarely attempted anything original in writing or 
speaking, except on public questions ; and when his 
autograph was sought in the albums which were the 
fashionable fad of the day, he borrowed his sentiments 
from the Presbyterian hymn-book, quoting, as Miss 
Martineau recalls, "stanzas of the most ominous 
import from Dr. Watts." 

Jackson usually flavored his dinners and receptions 
with a dash of the unexpected. On one occasion he 
jostled the proprieties by singing "Auld Lang Syne." 
He ate sparingly at his own table but talked a great 
deal, slowly and quietly, and, when women were 
present, with much real kindliness of tone. He had 
a homely way of disposing of questions which he re- 
garded as not overimportant. At a dinner in honor 
of the marriage of his adopted son, Andrew Jackson, 
Junior, he decided on an innovation in etiquette by 
having his Secretary of State precede the diplomatic 
corps, the rest of the Cabinet to follow the foreigners. 
This plan was vigorously resisted by the Secretary of 
the Treasury, who argued that the Cabinet was a 
unit, and that its members should therefore be treated 

[i6i] 



Walks About Washington 

on an equal footing. "In that case," said the Presi- 
dent, "we will put all the Cabinet ahead of the diplo- 
mats," and he sent his private secretary, Major Donel- 
son, to make the announcement to the guests. The 
French Minister at once stirred up the Dutch Minister, 
as senior member of the corps, to prevent the threat- 
ened indignity. Meanwhile, dinner had been an- 
nounced, and every one was standing, Donelson 
reported the strained situation to the President, who, 
instead of vowing "by the Eternal" that his com- 
mands should be obeyed, smiled good-naturedly and 
said : "Well, I will lead with the bride. It is a family 
affair; so we'll waive all difficulties, and the company 
will please to follow as heretofore." 

The first baby born in the White House probably 
was Mary Emily Donelson, child of the private secre- 
tary. At her baptism in the east room the President 
and Martin Van Buren stood as godfathers. Van 
Buren took her in his arms when she was first brought 
in, but she squirmed and wriggled so that Jackson 
reached out for her, whereat she cooed with delight, 
as children always did at any attention from him. 
He held her throughout the service, and, at the minis- 
ter's question, "Do you, in the name of this child, 
renounce the devil and all his works .'"' he stiffened up 
as he might have if confronted with a fresh machina- 

[162] 



Through Many Changing Years 

tion of his enemies, and declared with characteristic 
emphasis: "I do, sir; I renounce them all!" 

It was during Jackson's administration that Harriet 
Martineau first visited Washington. She was suffer- 
ing from overwork and had been orderd by her physi- 
cian in England to cross the sea for a good rest. In 
spite of that, people would not let her alone. It is 
said that within twenty-four hours after her arrival 
in town more than six hundred persons had called to 
pay their respects. Probably not fifty could have 
told why they did so, except that she was a literary 
celebrity. One lady was eager to learn "whether her 
novels were really very pretty," and most of the 
statesmen, when told that she was a political econo- 
mist, laughed outright. A social leader, desirous of 
giving her a dinner such as she had been accustomed 
to at home, made the table groan under the choicest 
things the market afforded, including eight different 
meats, only to see the guest confine herself to a tiny 
slice of turkey-breast and a nibble of ham. She was 
equally disconcerting with her other simplicities, such 
as coming to a five o'clock dinner at a little after 
three, clad in a walking suit in which she had been 
tramping about the city, but bringing in her capacious 
pockets all the trappings necessary for a presentable 
evening toilet. 

[163] 



Walks About Washington 

Notwithstanding her idiosyncrasies, Miss Martineau 
made a profoundly pleasant impression wherever she 
went. Webster, Clay, and Calhoun would desert their 
seats in the Senate to join her for a talk, and Chief 
Justice Marshall would descend from the bench to 
greet her when she came into his courtroom. She could 
take up her unpretentious position in the corner of a 
sofa anywhere, and in a few minutes have a circle of 
the country's elect about her awaiting their turns for 
a chat ; and this in spite of the fact that she was very 
deaf and had to make use of an ear-trumpet of an un- 
familiar pattern, so that often a newcomer would talk 
into the wrong aperture. She never made anything 
of her infirmity ; and, of all the poems, addresses, 
and letters of appreciation with which she was show- 
ered, the production which gave her most delight 
was an ode to her trumpet, beginning: "Beloved 
horn!" 

Early in this administration, the east room at the 
White House, which had figured in the Democratic 
campaign speeches as an audience chamber sump- 
tuous enough for royalty, was discovered to be too 
shabby for a President of Jackson's simple habits. 
So four large mirrors, heavily framed in gilt, were 
hung against its walls, their bases resting on mantels 
of black Italian marble. Chandeliers gleaming with 

[1641 



Through Many Changing Years 

glass prisms were suspended from the ceiling ; damask- 
covered chairs, their woodwork gilded like the mirror 
frames, were substituted for the worn-out furniture 
which had sufficed for the Adams family ; the windows 
were richly curtained ; a Brussels carpet, with the 
sprawling pattern then so much admired, was stretched 
over the entire floor ; and this array of elegance was 
capped with bouquets of artificial flowers, in painted 
china vases, distributed among the mantels and tables 
and in the window recesses. 

These things did not long retain their freshness. 
Jackson's dinners had features quaint enough, but 
his receptions were little short of riots. A literary 
visitor has left us the description of one where "gene- 
rals, commodores, foreign ministers and members of 
Congress" brushed elbows with laborers who had 
come in their working clothes from a day of canal dig- 
ging, and "sooty artificers" direct from the forge. 
"There were majors in broadcloth and corduroys, 
redolent of gin and tobacco, and majors' ladies in chintz 
or russet, with huge Paris earrings, and tawny necks 
profusely decorated with beads of colored glass. There 
were tailors from the board and judges from the 
bench ; lawyers who opened their mouths at one bar, 
and tapsters who closed theirs at another ; and one 
individual — either a miller or a baker — who, 

[165] 



Walks About Washington 

wherever he passed, left marks of contact on the gar- 
ments of the company." Meanwhile, the waiters 
who attempted to cross from the pantry to the east 
room with cakes and punch were intercepted by a 
ravenous horde who emptied the trays as fast as they 
could be refilled, so that little or nothing reached the 
better-mannered guests. This went on till the Irish 
butler, in exasperation, enlisted a dozen stalwart men 
and armed them with billets of wood, to surround the 
waiters as a guard, and keep their sticks swinging about 
the food so briskly that it could not be captured ex- 
cept at the cost of a broken head. Of course the 
carpet, curtains, and cushions were deluged w^ith sticky 
refuse, and broken bits of china and glass were ground 
into powder under foot. 

If it be possible to imagine anything worse in its 
way than this scene, it was Jackson's farewell enter- 
tainment, given on the twenty-second of February, 
1837. The chief feature was the cutting of a mammoth 
cheese which had been sent to the President by admir- 
ers in a northern dairy district. It weighed fourteen 
hundred pounds, and nothing would satisfy Jackson 
but to give a piece to every man, woman, and child 
who would come for it. As a result, the paths leading 
to the White House, and the portico itself, were 
thronged that afternoon with people going in to get 

[166] 



Through Many Changing Years 

their chunks and coming out with greasy parcels in 
their hands. "We forced our way over the threshold," 
wrote one of the adventurous souls, "and encountered 
an atmosphere to which the mephitic gas over Avernus 
must be faint and innocuous. On the side of the hall 
hung a rough likeness of General Jackson, emblazoned 
with eagle and stars, and in the center of the vestibule 
stood the fragrant gift, surrounded by a dense crowd 
who had in two hours cut and purveyed away more 
than a half-ton of horribly smelling 'Testimonial to 
the Hero of New Orleans.' A small segment had been 
reserved for the President's use, but it is doubtful if 
he ever tasted it." The cutting was done by two able- 
bodied laborers, armed with big knives extemporized 
from hand-saws. 

In the White House, Jackson lived a good deal 
apart. He was always glad to see any one who came 
on a friendly errand, and loved to frolic with children ; 
but one of his chief pleasures was sitting by himself in 
the big south room of the second story and smoking. 
An aged friend who, as a boy, visited the White House 
with his father while Jackson was there, told me that 
the President bade them draw up with him by the 
fireside, offered a clean clay pipe to the elder of the 
visitors, and, lighting his own well-seasoned corn-cob, 
puffed the smoke up the chimney, explaining that Emily 

[167] 



Walks About Washington 

Donelson — the wife of his secretary, who kept house 
for him — disHked the smell of tobacco. 

The ghost of the Peggy Eaton affair could never 
be permanently exorcised. Timberlake had not only 
died penniless and in debt but left his official accounts 
in confusion, and a year or two later it was discovered 
that he had been a defaulter. His bondsman resisted 
payment of the shortage, accusing Lieutenant Robert 
B. Randolph, who had taken over Timberlake's papers, 
of the actual responsibility for it. Randolph, in 
demanding a court-martial, committed a technical 
breach of discipline for which the President dismissed 
him summarily from the service. One day Jackson 
was a passenger on a river steamboat which stopped 
briefly at a wharf in Alexandria. He was sitting alone, 
when a stranger approached him as if to shake hands. 
Jackson, seeing him drawing off one of his gloves, 
said amiably, " Never mind your glove, sir," and 
stretched out his own hand. But the stranger, in- 
stead of taking it, made a violent lunge at Jackson's 
face, exclaiming : " I am Lieutenant Randolph, whom 
you have wronged and insulted, and I came here to 
pull your nose!" Startled by the noise, two or three 
gentlemen ran forward and sprang upon Randolph, 
who, in the struggle that followed, reached the gang- 
plank and freed himself. The President, convinced 

[i68] 



Through Many Changing Years 

by later developments that the Lieutenant had really 
suffered an Injustice, offered to reinstate him if he 
would apologize for the nose-pulling ; but he scorn- 
fully rejected the proposal. 

The Cabinet, as reorganized in consequence of 
pretty Peggy's fight, did not hang together long. Sec- 
retary Eaton intimated presently that he would like 
to retire, Van Buren seemed of the same mind, so the 
President appointed the former Governor of Florida 
and the latter Minister to England. The Senate 
confirmed Eaton's appointment with good enough 
grace, but balked at that of Van Buren, who, having 
gone to England in good faith to enter upon his duties, 
was put to the humiliating necessity of coming home 
again. Jackson was angry, regarding this as a blow 
at himself. "If they don't want him for Minister," 
he thundered, "we'll see if they like him any better 
as President!" He therefore laid out a program 
beginning with his own reelection with Van Buren as 
his Vice-president, and ending with Van Buren's elec- 
tion as his successor. The plan carried ; and, as Jack- 
son's affection for Van Buren had grown largely out 
of the latter's stanch loyalty in the Cabinet quarrel, 
Mrs. Eaton may be said to have shaped American his- 
tory for a considerable term of years. 

Long after this lady ceased to hold the center of the 

[169] 



Walks About Washington 

national stage, her career continued to be picturesque. 
Her husband, having retired from the Governorship 
of Florida, was appointed Minister to Spain, and in 
Madrid she appears to have made herself a great 
favorite at court. After General Eaton's death she 
returned to Washington, and was living down much of 
the adverse sentiment of former days, when there ap- 
peared on the scene an Italian dancing-master named 
Buchignani, whose dark, soulful eyes and insinuating 
manners proved too much for even her experienced 
heart. Although she was well advanced in years and 
he was young enough to be her son, she not only 
became his wife, but let all her comfortable fortune 
slip into his hands, and gradually gave him also the 
custody of her grandchildren's property, which she was 
holding in trust. He repaid her kindness by eloping 
with her favorite granddaughter to Canada, where 
he went into business as a saloon-keeper. Mrs. Bu- 
chignani died in 1879, still glorying in the memory 
of her early activities. 

As Vice-president, Van Buren lived in the Decatur 
house, the big somber brick dwelling on the corner of 
Jackson Place and H Street. Across the park, just 
south of the present home of the Cosmos Club, lived 
Mr. and Mrs. Ogle Tayloe, with whom it was his habit 
to pass his disengaged evenings. Suddenly he ceased 

[ 170] 



Decatur House 



Through Many Changing Years 

coming, and after some weeks Mr. Tayloe hunted 
him up to inquire what was the matter. His only 
response was : "Mrs. Tayloe has things lying about 
on her table which should not be there." Van Buren 
had always seemed interested in Mrs. Tayloe's collec- 
tion of contemporary autographs ; and, when husband 
and wife were searching there for the possible cause of 
offense, they came upon a letter from a prominent 
New York politician containing the passage : "What is 
little Matt doing ? Some dirty work, of course, as 
usual." Mrs. Tayloe cut out the derogatory paragraph 
and sent word to Van Buren that she had done so, 
and at once he renewed his visits. 

Jackson escorted Van Buren to the Capitol, for his 
inauguration, in a carriage widely celebrated as the 
"Constitution coach." It was a present to the Gen- 
eral from citizens of New York and was built out of 
timbers from the old war frigate Constitution^ a picture 
of which was emblazoned on one panel. Van Buren 
discovered, before he had been long in office, that 
a thousand things which the people accepted without 
question from a military hero they were prepared to 
criticize in a civilian. Moreover, his son John, while 
in England some years before, had danced with the 
Princess Victoria and thus acquired the nickname 
"Prince John," of which the enemies of the adminis- 

[1711 



Walks About Washington 

tration made use as a political cudgel, declaring that 
the whole family were aping the foreign aristocracy. 
Along came the financial panic of 1837, reducing 
thousands of well-to-do persons to poverty, and this 
was fatuously laid to Van Buren's account when he 
stood for reelection in 1840 against General William 
Henry Harrison, affectionately styled "Old Tippe- 
canoe" in memory of one of his victories. 
^^ Regardless of the fact that Jackson had refurnished 
the White House expensively for those days and then 
given entertainments which spoiled nearly everything 
spoilable, it was Van Buren who became the unde- 
serving target for attack on the ground that he main- 
tained "a royal establishment" in "a palace as splen- 
did as that of the Caesars, and as richly adorned as the 
proudest Asiatic mansion." The stump orators harped 
on the use of gold and silver spoons at the White House 
table, and on the excessive number of spittoons dis- 
tributed in the parlors and halls. Vainly did the Presi- 
dent's defenders show that the gold spoons were mostly 
plated ware, and that the spittoons, like the other 
furniture, were the property of the Government : the 
voters who ate their porridge from wooden vessels and 
threw their quids into boxes of sawdust were resolved 
upon putting into his place a man of different type. 
Henry Clay, passing the White House one day when 

[ 172] 



Through Many Changing Years 

a blaze broke out in the laundry, joined the firemen 
in helping to extinguish it, remarking jocularly to the 
President : "Though we are bound to have you out 
of here, Mr. Van Buren, we don't want you burned 
out." 

Harrison was elected. He was sixty-eight when 
he arrived in Washington in February, 1841, and was 
in delicate health, but affected a vain pretense of 
robustness. Though the day was chilly, with snow 
thinly covering the streets and a cold rain falling, he 
declined to enter a carriage, and walked half a mile to 
the City Hall with his hat in his hand, bowing to the 
people on either side of the street. At the hall he stood 
on the portico, still uncovered, while the Mayor made 
a speech of welcome and he responded. His exposure 
gave him a cold which, following his fatigues and excite- 
ment, brought on a serious nervous attack, and this 
was not improved by the prospect of a wearisome 
inaugural ceremony. He had only a common school 
education, but had read a good deal, particularly 
ancient history. Mr. Webster, whom he had selected 
for Secretary of State, recognizing his literary limita- 
tions, composed an excellent inaugural address and 
carried it to him, saying in explanation: "I feared 
lest, with all you are called upon to do just now, you 
might not find time to do anything of this sort." 

[ 173 ] 



Walks About Washington 

*'0h, yes," answered Harrison, cheerfully, producing 
a packet of neatly written sheets, "I attended to all 
that before leaving home." 

Webster tactfully contrived to induce him to ex- 
change manuscripts, "so that each author could read 
the other's production, and whichever proved the 
better could be used." 

But the next day Harrison handed back Webster's 
paper with the remark: "If I were to read your ad- 
dress, everybody would know you wrote it. Mine is 
not so good, but at least it is mine, and I shall prefer 
my own poor work to your brilliant one." As a last 
resort Webster offered to revise Harrison's address, 
and Harrison consented, though very reluctantly. 
Webster struggled with his task a whole day, chopping 
out paragraph after paragraph of classical citations. 
When a lady that evening inquired what he had been 
doing to make him look so ill, he exclaimed: "You'd 
be ill, too, if you had committed all the crimes I have. 
Within twelve hours I have killed seventeen Roman 
pro-consuls — dead as smelts, every man of them!" 

Though compelled to sacrifice so much of his antique 
lore, Harrison was not to be argued out of his resolve 
to ride a white horse to and from his inauguration, 
haying read of sundry great Romans who thus trav- 
ersed the Appian Way. He refused, too, to wear an 

[1741 



Through Many Changing Years 

overcoat on the fourth of March, notwithstanding that 
he had a heavy cold, and that a stiff gale was blowing 
which searched the vitals of most men in thick gar- 
ments. Nor would he consent to cover his head while 
delivering his address, which was a protest against 
executive usurpation, the corruption of the press, and 
the abuses of party spirit. Few who heard it realized 
how near they had come to witnessing no inaugu- 
ral ceremony that day. It had been arranged that 
Harrison should join the procession for the Capitol at 
the house of a friend whom he was visiting, but he 
was in such a state of nervous exhaustion that he 
fainted twice before the time came to start. His com- 
panions bathed his temples with brandy, and the 
physician they called in forbade his going out of doors 
unless in a carriage ; but he would hear to no change 
of plans, and managed, by sheer force of will, not only 
to perform his part at the Capitol, but to hold an after- 
noon reception at the White House and in the evening 
to look in at two or three balls with which the Whigs 
were celebrating their triumph. 

During the fortnight that followed, he did his best 
to conceal his increasing feebleness, even going in per- 
son to market every morning when he was able. But a 
succession of colds presently ran into pneumonia, and 
the oihce-seekers hounded him not the less cruelly 

[175] 



IValks About Washington 

after this. Just one month from the day of his inau- 
guration, death came to his reHef. Mrs. Harrison, 
who had been too ill to accompany him to Washing- 
ton, never saw him from the day he parted with her in 
Ohio till his body was brought back to her for burial. 



[176] 



CHAPTER VII 

"THE SPIRIT OF GREAT EVENTS" 

JOHN TYLER, the first Vice-president to receive 
promotion to the Presidency in mid-term, was 
at his home in Virginia when Harrison died. 
He came to Washington at once and took lodgings at a 
hotel, where, two days later, he was sworn in by Chief 
Judge Cranch of the Circuit Court of the District. 
His administration was not picturesque in the usual 
sense ; the most it gave people to talk about was his 
narrow escape from impeachment for deserting the 
party which elected him. But his unpopularity bore 
valuable fruit for Washington. When the partisan 
excitement was at its highest pitch, a company of 
local politicians went to the White House one night 
and, drawn up in front of it, "groaned" their disap- 
proval of Tyler's conduct. To protect the Presiden- 
tial office from further indignities of that sort, a bill 
was introduced in the Senate to establish an "auxil- 
iary guard" for the defense of the public and private 
property against incendiaries, and "for the enforce- 

[ 177] 



Walks About Washi?igton 

ment of the police regulations of the city of Washing- 
ton," with an appropriation of seven thousand dollars 
to equip a captain and fifteen men with the proper 
implements to distinguish them in the discharge of 
their duty. This was the foundation of the Metropoli- 
tan Police force, which now numbers seventy-five 
officers and more than six hundred privates. 

Life at the White House was simple in Tyler's time. 
The President was in the habit of rising with the sun, 
lighting a fire that had been laid overnight in his study, 
and working at his desk till breakfast was served at 
eight o'clock. At this meal he insisted on having the 
ladies of his family appear in calico frocks. In the 
evening all the household would gather In the green 
parlor and pass an hour or two in entertaining any 
visitors who happened in, interspersing conversation 
with piano music and old-fashioned songs. It was 
Tyler who introduced the custom of periodical open- 
air concerts by the Marine Band ; and on warm Sat- 
urday afternoons the garden south of the White House 
was a favorite resort of the best people of the city, 
while the President would sit with his family and a 
few invited guests on the porch, listening to the music 
and responding to the salutations of his acquaintances. 
Tyler is rarely suspected of possessing a strong sense 
of humor ; but he must have smiled when he signed 

[178] 



" The Spirit of Great Events " 

an official letter to the Emperor of China, in which he 
described himself as "President of the United States 
of America, which States are Maine, New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indi- 
ana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, 
and Michigan" — an array which so impressed the 
mind of the Celestial despot that the envoy who pre- 
sented the missive got everything he asked for. 

Tyler lost his wife soon after he entered the White 
House, and his daughters presided over the domestic 
life there. He was fond of young society, and one of 
the belles who appeared pretty regularly at his parties 
was Miss Virginia Timberlake, daughter of the unfor- 
tunate naval purser and the lady whose cause Jack- 
son and Van Buren had championed. Another was 
Miss Julia Gardiner of New York, who so captivated 
him that at one of his receptions in the second year of 
his term he made her a proposal of marriage. As she 
described it afterward, she was taken wholly by sur- 
prise, and gave her "No, no, no!" such emphasis by 
shaking her head that she whisked the tassel of her 
crimson Greek cap into his face with every motion. 
The controlling reason for her refusal, she explained, 

[ 179] 



Walks About Washington 

was her unwillingness to leave her father, to whom she 
was devotedly attached ; but an accident soon changed 
the whole face of things. 

Captain Stockton of the navy invited a party of 
about four hundred ladies and gentlemen to inspect 
the sloop-of-war Princeton^ then lying in the Potomac. 
President Tyler, the members of his Cabinet and their 
families, and a good many Congressmen were among 
the guests. The vessel had dropped down the river to 
a point near Mount Vernon, when some of the party 
importuned Stockton to fire his big gun, nicknamed 
"the peacemaker." This was just at the close of the 
luncheon, and the ladies had lingered at table while 
most of the gentlemen went on deck. One lady, for- 
tunately, had detained Tyler as he was about to leave, 
by inducing him to listen to a song ; for the gun ex- 
ploded, killing Mr. Upshur, Secretary of State, Mr. 
Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy, Commander Kennon of 
the navy, Virgil Maxey, lately American Minister at 
the Hague, and David Gardiner of New York, the 
father of Miss Julia. A day of merrymaking was thus 
turned into one of mourning, as the vessel slowly moved 
up the stream again, bearing the bodies of the dead, 
for whom funeral services were held at the White 
House. After an interval the President renewed his 
suit and found Miss Gardiner more pliant. When he 

[i8o] 



Soldiers' Home 







'■•^ 



/ 



''6r 



i"Wt. 



" The Spirit of Great Events " 

had composed in her honor a serenade beginning, 
"Sweet lady, awake!" she agreed to marry him if her 
mother would consent. Her mother did not approve 
of a union between a man of fifty-six and a girl of 
twenty, but, as she did not actually forbid it, they had 
a very quiet wedding. 

In spite of the enjoyment he took in social intercourse, 
Tyler was often criticized for his frigid manners. A 
virulent type of influenza which became epidemic 
during his administration received the name of "the 
Tyler grip," from the remark of a Boston man who fell 
ill a few hours after being presented to him : "I prob- 
ably caught cold from shaking hands with the Presi- 
dent." A good deal was made of this in the campaign 
of 1844, and added point to John Quincy Adams's 
denunciation of Tyler for "performing with a young 
girl from New York the old fable of January and 
May!" Tyler's general unpopularity, and a deadlock 
between two other prominent candidates, led the 
Democrats to nominate James K. Polk for President. 
He was so little known to most of the voters that 
throughout the campaign the Whigs, who were sup- 
porting Henry Clay, rang the changes on the question, 
"Who is James K. Polk.^" thus contrasting his ob- 
scurity with Clay's eminence. The count of ballots 
showed that a candidate of whom little was known 

[181] 



Walks About Washington 

might have certain advantages over one long before 
the public eye ; and as on inauguration day it rained 
heavily, exultant Democrats kept themselves warm by 
hurling back at the Whigs the familiar cry, "Who is 
James K. Polk?" and then laughing wildly at their 
own humor. It was on this occasion that the tele- 
graph first conveyed out of Washington the news that 
one President had retired and another had come in — 
Professor Morse having set up an instrument at the 
edge of the platform on which the President-elect stood, 
and ticked off a report of the proceedings as they 
occurred. 

Mrs. Polk being a devoted church-member, of a 
school which disapproved of dancing, the inaugural 
ball that evening shrank into a mere promenade con- 
cert till after she and her husband had quitted the 
hall. The social activities of the Polks, through the 
four years which followed, were consistent with this 
beginning, all the functions at the White House being 
too sober to suit the diplomats or the younger element 
among the resident population. On its practical side, 
Polk's term was perhaps the most notable in that gen- 
eration, including as it did the war with Mexico, which 
resulted in the annexation of California and the great 
southwestern area afterward carved into the States of 
Utah, Nevada, and Arizona and parts of Wyoming, 

[182] 



" The Spirit of Great Events '* 

Colorado, and New Mexico. This war, moreover, 
furnished the usual crop of Presidential candidates, 
chief among them General Zachary Taylor, who had 
led the first army across the Rio Grande, and General 
Winfield Scott, who had wound up the invasion by 
capturing the city of Mexico. 

Believing Taylor the easier to handle, the Whig 
managers fixed upon him, although, having passed the 
larger part of his sixty-four years with the army, he 
had never voted. Indeed, he had always expressed 
an aversion to office-holding, and, when approached 
on the subject of the Presidency, met the overture with 
frank disfavor, declaring that he had neither the ca- 
pacity nor the experience needed for such a position. 
But his "availability" overcame the force of his pro- 
tests, and the Whigs won with him a sweeping victory 
at the polls. There is pathos in the story of the break- 
up of the pleasant home in Baton Rouge, and the re- 
luctant removal of the family to Washington, taking 
with them only a faithful negro servant, a favorite dog, 
and "Old Whitey," the horse the General had ridden 
through the Mexican war. Taylor was with difficulty 
dissuaded from his purpose of imitating his military 
predecessors and riding "Old Whitey" either to or 
from the Capitol on inauguration day. What his 
friends most feared was his loss of dignity in the eyes 

[ 183 ] 



Walks About Washi?2gton 

of the crowd, for his legs were so short that, in certain 
emergencies, an orderly had to lift one of them over 
his horse's flanks whenever he mounted or dismounted. 

Taylor was as simple a soul as Harrison. His unos- 
tentatious ways in the army had led the soldiers to 
dub him "Old Rough and Ready," and this title stuck 
to him always afterward. One of his favorite amuse- 
ments was to walk about Washington, chatting infor- 
mally with people he met and watching whatever was 
going on in the streets. His love of comfort was such 
that he could never be induced to wear clothes that 
fitted him, but his suits were always a size or two 
larger than his measure, and these, with a black silk 
hat set far back on his head, made him recognizable at 
any distance. His message at the opening of Congress 
contained one announcement as voluminous as his 
costume : "We are at peace with all the nations of the 
world, and the rest of mankind." The bull was dis- 
covered too late to prevent its going out in the original 
print ; but in a revised edition the sentence was made 
to end : "And seek to maintain our cherished relations 
of amity with them." 

The White House underwent another grand refur- 
bishing while the Taylors were in it. The east room 
was newly carpeted, its walls were decorated, and gas 
replaced its candles and lamps. The ladies of the 

[184] 



" The Spirit of Great Events " 

family were good housekeepers — particularly the 
younger daughter, who made the old place look actually 
homelike, and whom an appreciative guest described 
as doing the honors "with the artlessness of a rustic 
belle and the grace of a duchess." But this pleasant 
picture was soon to be clouded over. On the fourth 
of July, 1850, a patriotic meeting was held at the base 
of the Washington National Monument, with long 
addresses by prominent men. It lasted the whole of 
a very hot afternoon, and President Taylor, as a guest 
of honor, felt bound to stay through it, refreshing him- 
self from time to time with copious drafts of ice-water. 
He reached home in a state of some exhaustion 
and at once ate a basketful of cherries and drank 
several glasses of iced milk. From a party to which 
he had accepted an invitation for that evening he was 
obliged to excuse himself at the last moment on the 
score of indisposition. He was violently ill through- 
out the night, and five days later he died. 

Millard Fillmore of New York, fifty years old, of 
moderate political views and fair ability, was Vice- 
president at the time. Unlike Tyler, he went to the 
Capitol to be sworn in the presence of a committee of 
the two houses, but made no inaugural address. Mrs. 
Fillmore, who had formerly been a teacher, cared little 
for society. She was of studious habits and soon 

[ 185 ] 



Walks About Washington 

converted the oval sitting room in the second story 
of the White House into a library, personally selecting 
the books. Her taste ran chiefly to standard histori- 
cal and classical works ; and, as the editions then avail- 
able were generally not very good specimens of the 
typographic art, most of her collection has disap- 
peared. In this administration the Fugitive Slave Act 
was passed, and Fillmore, by signing it, alienated the 
North so largely that the Whig party refused to nomi- 
nate him for another term. General Scott, to whom 
it turned, did precisely what most of the politicians had 
predicted he would : made a number of public utter- 
ances which ruined his chances and thus gave the 
election to his Democratic competitor, Franklin Pierce 
of New Hampshire. 

During Fillmore's term Louis Kossuth visited Wash- 
ington. The country was just passing through one of 
its occasional periods of revolutionary fervor, and 
Kossuth's stand for the rights of Hungary against 
Austria had aroused much sympathy here. Our public 
men were divided in opinion as to how far to go with 
their demonstrations in his favor, wishing to win the 
support of the Hungarians in the United States and 
of immigrants who had fled from other countries to 
escape oppression, yet hoping to keep clear of entangle- 
ments with Austria. As Kossuth had left home to 

[186] 



" The Spirit of Great Events " 

escape death for high treason and taken refuge in Con- 
stantinople, one of our men-of-war was sent to the 
Dardanelles to bring him to America. He did not then 
care to go further than England, whence, after an 
agreeable visit, he came over, in the expectation of 
inducing our Government to take up arms for Hun- 
garian liberty. Henry Clay, who was already stricken 
with his last illness, promptly put a damper upon 
that scheme ; but Kossuth remained the guest of the 
nation for a time and was dined and feted prodigiously. 
He maintained the state of a royal personage, keeping 
a uniformed and armed guard about the door of his 
suite of apartments at what is now the Metropolitan 
Hotel, and a lot of carousing young subalterns always 
in his anteroom. He never appeared in public except 
in full military uniform, with his cavalry sword, in its 
steel scabbard, clanking by his side. Mrs. Kossuth, 
who accompanied him on his tour, was unable to over- 
come her distrust of American cooking, and used to 
scandalize her neighbors at table by ostentatiously 
smelling of every new dish before tasting it. 

The inauguration of Pierce was marked by several 
innovations : he drove to and from the Capitol stand- 
ing up in his carriage, delivered his address without 
notes, and made affirmation instead of taking the 
oath of office. A tragic interest attaches itself to his 

[187] 



IV a Iks About Washington 

administration, because, just as he was preparing to 
remove to Washington, he lost his only child, a boy 
of thirteen, in a railway accident. Mrs. Pierce, who 
was an invalid, was terribly broken by this bereave- 
ment, and all social festivities at the White House 
were abandoned till toward the close of her stay there. 
The new Vice-president, William R. King, was not 
inaugurated at the same time and place with the Pres- 
ident. He had gone to Cuba in January for his health, 
and, as he was not well enough to come home. Congress 
passed a special act permitting him to take the oath 
before the American Consul-general at Havana. Soon 
after his return to the United States, in April, he died. 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was a college mate and 
intimate friend of Pierce, was anxious to see some- 
thing of Europe, but had not the means to gratify his 
desire ; so Pierce appointed him consul at Liverpool, 
where he was able to live in comfort on his pay and 
save enough for a sojourn on the Continent. To this 
experience American literature owes most of his later 
work, including "The Marble Faun" and "Our Old 
Home." In Washington still linger stories of a visit 
Hawthorne paid the city about the time of his ap- 
pointment. Pierce tried to show him some informal 
attentions ; but Hawthorne's shyness, which went to 
such an extreme that he could not say anything to the 

[i88] 



" The Spirit of Great Events " 

lady next him at table without trembling and blush- 
ing, prevented his making much headway socially. 

All through Pierce's term, political conditions were 
working up to the point which caused the irruption of 
a few years later. The habit of carrying deadly weap- 
ons on the person became so common in Washington, 
especially in Congress, that scarcely an altercation 
occurred between two men without the exposure, if 
not the use, of a pistol or a dirk. The newspapers in 
their serious columns treated such incidents severely, 
while the comic paragraphers satirized them ; and 
Preston Brooks, a Representative from South Caro- 
lina, in a half-earnest, half-cynical vein, gave notice 
one day of his intention to offer this amendment to 
the rules of the House : "Any member who shall bring 
into the House a concealed weapon, shall be expelled 
by a vote of two-thirds. The Sergeant-at-Arms shall 
cause a suitable rack to be erected in the rotunda, where 
members who are addicted to carrying concealed 
weapons shall be required to place them for the inspec- 
tion of the curious," so long as the owners are employed 
in legislation." 

Senator Sumner of Massachusetts having, a few 
days later, in a speech on slavery, spoken disparagingly 
of a South Carolina Senator who was absent. Brooks, 
on the twenty-second of May, 1856, entered the Senate 

[189] 



Walks About Washington 

chamber when it was nearly deserted, and, with a 
heavy gutta-percha cane, rained blows with all his 
strength upon the head of Sumner, who was quietly 
writing at his desk. Sumner fell to the floor and for 
some days thereafter hovered between life and death. 
He was three or four years in recovering from the direct 
effects of the assault, and never was entirely restored 
to health and strength. The incident excited bitter 
feeling throughout both North and South. For de- 
nouncing the assault as paralleling that of Cain upon 
Abel, Representative Anson Burlingame of New York 
was challenged by Brooks ; he accepted the challenge, 
naming date, place, and weapons, but Brooks failed 
to appear on the field. 

The next President was James Buchanan of Pennsyl- 
vania, also a Democrat. The two incidents in his 
term which most impressed Washington were the first 
successful experiments with the Atlantic cable in 
August, 1858, and the visit to the White House of the 
Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VH. 
Cyrus W. Field, after a struggle as soul-wearing as 
Morse's over the introduction of the telegraph, suc- 
ceeded in making his submarine cable work and in- 
duced Queen Victoria to send the first despatch, a 
message of greeting to President Buchanan, who was 
requested to answer it in kind. The skepticism of the 

[ 190] 



" The Spirit of Great Events '* 

day toward all scientific novelties was reflected in 
Buchanan's summoning a newspaper correspondent 
whom he trusted and begging to be told frankly 
whether he were not the victim of a hoax. At the 
White House all the members of the Cabinet were 
gathered, earnestly debating the same question. The 
most stubborn disbeliever was the Secretary of the 
Treasury, Howell Cobb, who jeered at the whole thing 
as a wild absurdity. In spite of Cobb's resistance, 
the correspondent persuaded the President to answer 
the Queen's message. As bad luck would have it, 
the cable parted in mid-ocean soon thereafter and 
was not restored to working order for several years ; 
and in the interval the skeptics were appropriately 
exultant. 

Buchanan, who was our first bachelor President, 
was sometimes slangily called "the O. P. F.," having 
once referred to himself in a message as an "old pub- 
lic functionary." The image of him carried in the 
popular mind is derived from contemporaneous pic- 
tures, which show him as a stiff, precise, ministerial- 
looking old man, wearing a black coat, a high choker 
collar, and a spotless white neckerchief. But this 
was the style of the day in portraiture and must not 
be accepted too literally. The late Frederick O. 
Prince of Boston used to tell of a morning call he paid 

[191] 



IValks About W^ashington 

Buchanan, whom he had imagined a model of formal- 
ity and elegance, and of his astonishment when the 
President entered the room clad in a greenish figured 
dressing-gown, woolen socks, and carpet slippers, and, 
to put the standing visitors at their ease, called to a 
servant: "Jeems, sit some cheers!" 

When Buchanan came to Washington for his inaugu- 
ration, attended by a number of Pennsylvania friends, 
he took lodgings at the National Hotel, where the whole 
party fell ill with symptoms which to-day we should 
charge to ptomaine poisoning. One or two of the 
sufferers died. Buchanan escaped with a compara- 
tively light attack ; but a rumor gained circulation 
that the Free Soilers had tried to assassinate him be- 
cause of his conservative disposition toward slavery. 
For some time after he entered the White House, there- 
fore, the police kept a watch on his movements, and 
one rough-looking Kansan was arrested on suspicion, 
having bought an air-gun and engaged a room in a 
building which the President was in the habit of pass- 
ing every day when he went out for exercise. 

The domestic accommodations at the White House 
were already so limited that, when the Prince of Wales 
visited it in i860, the President had to give up his 
bedchamber to his guest and sleep on a cot in the ante- 
room of his office. As I recall the Prince he was not 

[ 192] 



Old City Hall 




m 






" The Spirit of Great Events " 

inordinately tall, but for some reason — possibly be- 
cause the legs of royalty were supposed to need more 
space than those of common folk — the old bedstead 
in the President's room was replaced by one of extra 
length. Society in Washington was agog over the 
Prince's advent, and the reigning belles insisted that 
his entertainment must include a ball at least as bril- 
liant as that given in his honor in New York ; but 
Mr. Buchanan, whose ideas on certain subjects were 
rigid, would not listen to the suggestion of dancing in 
the White House, and the ball was turned over to the 
British legation. Miss Harriet Lane, the President's 
niece, who managed his household affairs, gave instead 
a large musicale, at which was performed for the first 
time the once favorite song, "The Mocking Bird," 
its composer having dedicated it to her. 

Trained as attorney, diplomatist, and politician, to 
regard the letter of the law rather than its spirit, Bu- 
chanan found himself in an unhappy situation when the 
preliminary mutterings of sectional warfare grew loud. 
In January, 1861, he was urged by some of the Cabinet 
to recall Major Robert Anderson from Charleston Har- 
bor as a rebuke for having removed the Fort Moultrie 
garrison to the stronger Fort Sumter without orders 
from Washington, and he was holding the matter under 
advisement when Justice McLean of the Supreme Court 

[ 193 ] 



Walks About Washifigton 

came to dine with him one evening. After the ladies 
had left the table, the Justice drew the President aside 
and inquired what was going to be done about the 
Major. "Anderson has exceeded his instructions,'' 
answered Buchanan, "and must be disciplined." Mc- 
Lean raised his hand and fairly shook it in the Presi- 
dent's face as he ejaculated : "You dare not do it, sir ! 
You dare not do it!" This unique defiance of the 
executive by the judiciary had an immediate effect : 
Major Anderson was left undisturbed, to become 
within a few weeks the first hero of the Civil War. 

General Scott, who filled a large place in national 
affairs from Polk's administration till the autumn of 
1861, was a good officer and a pure patriot but full 
of eccentricities. His love for military forms gave 
him the nickname "Old Fuss and Feathers," and a 
letter he wrote during the Mexican war, excusing his 
absence from his headquarters when the Secretary of 
War called there, on the plea that he had just stepped 
out to get "a hasty plate of soup," had won for him the 
punning title "Marshal Turenne." He was a good 
deal of a gourmet and did his family marketing himself, 
especially delighting in the delicacy which he persisted 
in calling "tarrapin," and ordering his oysters by the 
barrel. One of his favorite dishes was pork jowl, and 
once he told of having eaten sauerkraut "with tears 

[ 194] 



" The Spirit of Great Events " 

in his eyes." He was a keen stickler for the dignity 
due him on all occasions. Just after Taylor had been 
inaugurated President, the two men met in Washing- 
ton for the first time since a somewhat acrimonious 
parting in Mexico. Taylor, passing over old animos- 
ities, invited Scott to call. Scott did so the next 
day, and Taylor, who was engaged with some other 
gentlemen in his office, sent word that he would be 
down in a moment. Five minutes later, having cut 
his business short, the President descended to the 
parlor, to find his visitor already gone : Scott had 
waited two minutes by the clock and then stalked 
in high dudgeon out of the door, not to come back 
again. 

The drama of the Lincoln administration, on which 
the curtain rose to a bugle-blast and fell to the beat of 
muffled drums, deserves a volume to itself ; but in my 
limited space I have been able to outline only some of 
its features directly related to the capital city. Lin- 
coln's first levee was held not in the White House but 
at Willard's Hotel, some days before the inaugura- 
tion. The higher public functionaries and their wives, 
and a number of private citizens of prominence, had 
been notified rather than invited to come to the hotel 
on a certain evening for a first glimpse of the new chief 
magistrate. Into this presence stalked the lank, 

[195] 



Walks About Washington 

loose-jointed, oddly clad "Old Abe," with his little, 
simple, white-shawled wife at his elbow, and the never 
failing jest on his lips as he made his own announce- 
ment : "Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you 
the long and the short of the Presidency ! " 

The Lincolns received several social courtesies from 
members of Congress and others before the fourth of 
March, and on the evening of that day the usual inau- 
gural ball was given in their honor. It was plain from 
the start that they had not made a favorable impres- 
sion in their new setting, for the ball was a failure in 
point of attendance ; few ladies wore fine costumes, 
and of the men the majority came in their business 
clothes. As neither Mr. nor Mrs. Lincoln knew how 
to dance, or felt enough confidence even to walk through 
a quadrille, the early part of the evening was devoted 
to a handshaking performance which threw a chill 
upon the rest. Mrs. Lincoln's feminine instinct had 
led her to exchange the stuffy frock and shawl of her 
first reception for a blue silk gown. Mr. Buchanan 
had been expected but sent belated regrets ; and 
Stephen A. Douglas, the "Little Giant" who always 
became a big one in an emergency, stepped into the 
breach as representative of the abdicating party, 
and established himself as the personal escort and 
knight-in-waiting of Mrs. Lincoln. 

[196] 



" The Spirit of Great Events " 

In the White House, Lincoln took for his office the 
large square room in the second story next the south- 
east corner, from the windows of which he could look 
over at the Virginia hills. The room adjoining on the 
west was assigned to his clerks and to visitors waiting 
for an interview. To secure him a little privacy in 
passing between his office and the oval library, a wooden 
screen was run across the south end of the waiting 
room, and behind this he used to make the transit in 
fancied invisibility, to the delight of the -people sitting 
on the other side, to whom, owing to his extraordinary 
height, the top locks of his hair and a bit of his fore- 
head were exposed above the partition. He was per- 
sistently hounded by candidates for appointment to 
office ; and it is recalled that in one instance, where 
two competitors for a single place had worn him out 
with their importunities, he sent for a pair of scales, 
weighing all the petitions in favor of one candidate and 
then those of the other, and giving the appointment 
to the man whose budget weighed three-quarters of 
a pound more than his rival's. 

Visitors admitted to his office usually found him 
very kind in manner, though now and then a satirical 
impulse would give an edge to his humor. When an 
irate citizen with a grievance called and poured it out 
upon him, accompanied by a variegated assortment 

[ 197 ] 



Walks About Washington 

of profanity, Lincoln waited patiently till the speaker 
halted to take breath, and then inquired: "You're an 
Episcopalian, aren't you?" 

"Why do you ask that?" demanded the visitor, 
momentarily forgetting his anger in his surprise. 

"Because," answered Lincoln, "Seward's an Epis- 
copalian, and you swear just like him." 

The Reverend Doctor Bellows of New York, as chair- 
man of the Sanitary Commission, called once during 
the Civil War to tell Lincoln of a number of things he 
ought to do. Lincoln listened with the most flatter- 
ing attention, slightly inclining his head in recognition 
of every separate reminder of a duty left unperformed, 
and at the close of the catalogue remained a minute 
or two in silent meditation. Then, throwing one of 
his long legs over an arm of his chair, he looked up with 
a quizzical smile. "Dominie," said he, "how much 
will you take to swap jobs with me?" 

He could not always keep his humor out of his offi- 
cial communications, as in this despatch to General 
Hooker in Virginia : "If the head of Lee's army is at 
Martinsburg, and the tail of it on the plank road be- 
tween Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal 
must be pretty slim somewhere. Couldn't you break 
him?" 

Indeed, it was his instinctive discernment of the 

[198] 



" The Spirit of Great Events'^ 

ridiculous side of everything which, though it gave his 
enemies their chance to assail him as a mountebank 
and a jester, undoubtedly served as a buffer to many 
a heavy blow. Sometimes his laughs were at his own 
expense. About the middle of the war a young man 
from a distant State procured an interview with him, 
to expound a project for visiting Richmond in the 
disguise of a wandering organ-grinder and making 
drawings of the defenses of the city for the use of the 
Union commanders. Lincoln was so impressed that 
he contributed one hundred and fifty dollars or more 
to purchase the organ and pay other preliminary ex- 
penses. The young man disappeared for some weeks 
and then returned with a thrilling account of his 
adventures, and with plats and charts covering every- 
thing of military importance around Richmond and 
at various points on the way thither. As a reward, 
the President nominated him for a second lieutenancy 
in the army and spurred some other patriot into send- 
ing him a brand new uniform and sword. After a 
little, and by accident, it came out that the youth had 
never been anywhere near Richmond, but had spent 
the President's money on a trip to his home, where, at 
his ease, he had prepared his fictitious report and maps. 
Of course his nomination was at once withdrawn ; 
but Lincoln was so amused at his own childlike cre- 

[ 199] 



Walks About Washington 

dulity that he could not bring himself to punish the 
offense as it deserved. 

The Cabinet were often annoyed at the obtrusion 
of the President's taste for a joke at what seemed 
to them inopportune moments — especially Secretary 
Stanton, whose sense of humor was not keen. On Sep- 
tember 22, 1862, they were peremptorily summoned 
to a meeting at the White House. They found the 
President reading a book, from which he barely looked 
up till all were in their seats. Then he said : "Gentle- 
men, did you ever read anything from Artemus Ward ? 
Let me read you a chapter which is very funny." 
When the reading was finished, he laughed heartily, 
looking around the circle for a response, but nobody 
even smiled ; if any countenance revealed anything, 
it was irritation. "Well," said he, "let's have another 
chapter;" and he suited action to word. Finding 
his listeners no more sympathetic than before, he 
threw the book down with a deep sigh and exclaimed : 
"Gentlemen, why don't you laugh.? With the fearful 
strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh 
I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I 
do." With that, he ran his hand down into his tall 
hat, which sat on the table near him, and drew forth 
a sheet of paper, from which he read aloud, with the 
most impressive emphasis, the first draft of the Eman- 

[ 200 ] 



" The Spirit of Great Events " 

cipation Proclamation. "If any of you have any 
suggestions to make as to the form of this paper or its 
composition," said he, "I shall be glad to hear them. 
But" — and the deliberateness with which he pro- 
nounced the next words left no doubt that the die had 
already been cast — "this paper is to issue!" 

The Lincolns brought two young children with them 
into the White House, both boys. Of the elder, Willie, 
we hear little, except that he died there, and that his 
loss added one more to the many lines which the war 
had worn into the brow of his father. The younger 
boy, "Tad," is better known to the public through 
the exploitation of his juvenile pranks by the news- 
papers and his appearance in some of the President's 
portraits. Many stories are told of his fondness for 
bringing ragged urchins from the streets into the 
kitchen and feeding them, to the sore distress of the 
cook and sometimes to the disturbance of the domestic 
routine in other ways ; but for whatever he wished to 
do in the charitable line he found his father a faithful 
ally. There is a pretty tale of his having espied in 
the lower corridor of the White House, one very rainy 
day, a young man and woman, rather shabbily dressed, 
who seemed depressed in spirits and anxious to consult 
with some one. Tad called his father's attention to 
them, and the President went up and asked them what 

[ 20I ] 



Walks About Washington 

they wished. His sympathetic manner loosed their 
tongues and they told him their story. 

It appeared that the girl was from Virginia and 
had run away from home to marry her lover, an honor- 
ably discharged soldier from Indiana. They had met 
by arrangement in Washington, but they were strangers 
there and very unsophisticated, and had little money 
to pay a minister or spend on hotel accommodations ; 
so they had been wandering about the city for hours, 
not knowing where to go, and had taken refuge in the 
White House from the storm. They had no idea that 
they were talking to the President till he made himself 
known. With characteristic directness, he sent for 
a clergyman of his acquaintance and had the nuptial 
knot tied in his presence. Then he invited bride 
and groom to remain as his guests till the next day, 
when the weather cleared and they went their way 
rejoicing. 

Although Mrs. Lincoln was the titular head of the 
President's household, the woman recognized as the 
social leader of the administration was Kate Chase, 
daughter of the Secretary of the Treasury. She was 
handsome, accomplished, and, after her marriage 
with William Sprague, the young War Governor of 
Rhode Island, rich as well. Mrs. Lincoln never liked 
her, but the President's gift for peacemaking came into 

[ 202 ] 



" The Spirit of Great Events'" 

action here, and there was no public display of the 
coolness of feeling between them. Mrs. Sprague had 
a strong taste for politics, and her chief ambition was 
to see her father President ; but Lincoln cut off that 
chance at the critical moment by making him Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court. Among the young 
and rising Congressmen with whom Mrs. Sprague 
was brought into contact during this period was Roscoe 
Conkling, a Representative from New York, who later 
became a Senator. He was the pink of elegance in 
person and attire, of stately and somewhat condescend- 
ing manners, and master of the arts of verbal expression. 
They formed a firm friendship which lasted as long as 
both lived. Edgewood, the Chase home on the 
northern border of the city, was for many years one of 
the show places of Washington, and after Chase's 
death Conkling procured from Congress an act exempt- 
ing it from taxation as a tribute to the public services 
of its former owner. Another young Representative 
of whom Mrs. Sprague saw almost as much as of 
Conkling, but liked less, was James G. Blaine of Maine, 
a brilliant orator who in after years became Conkling's 
most powerful adversary. 

A warm friend of Chase's who used to drop in at 
Edgewood whenever he was in Washington was Horace- 
Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune. He was a 

[ 203 ] 



Walks About Washington 

quaint character, who wore his clothes awry and his 
hair long and always tousled. His face he kept clean 
shaven, but raised a heavy blond beard under his 
chin and jaws ; and this, with his ruddy cheeks, blue 
eyes, beaming spectacles, and generally bland aspect, 
made him look like the typical back-country farmer 
of theatrical tradition. He accentuated the peculiar- 
ities of his appearance by affecting a large soft hat and 
not spotless white overcoat, the pockets of the latter 
habitually bulging with newspapers. His handwriting 
was as unconventional as his attire, and compositors 
in the Tribune oifice had to be specially trained in 
deciphering it, for Mr. Greeley was often unable to 
read it himself after the subject-matter had grown 
cold in his mind. 

Greeley was an anti-slavery man, but not an ag- 
gressive abolitionist ; nevertheless he smiled benig- 
nantly upon the work of the Hutchinson family and 
took some pains to introduce them in Washington 
wherever their music would be likely to meet with a 
cordial reception. The Hutchinsons were a Ma s 8 a - 
L^J^AA-^G husctt s family of sixteen brothers and sisters, nearly 
all of them bearing Bible names given them by a deeply 
religious mother. They learned as children to lead 
the singing in the Baptist church attended by their 
parents, and, as their musical fame spread, one of the 

[ 204 ] 



Y-oj^ - 



The ''Old Capitol' 




^^:l 1 



" The Spirit of Great Events " 

brothers developed a talent as a versifier and began 
writing songs adapted to their interpretation, breath- 
ing an earnest spirit of patriotism and pleading for 
human freedom. From giving concerts in their native 
town and neighborhood, they gradually essayed more 
and more ambitious ventures, and with Greeley's aid 
came under the favorable notice of the administration. 
Lincoln, realizing the appeal their homely entertain- 
ments would make to the Union volunteers, gave them 
a roving commission to visit the camps of the Army 
of the Potomac and encouraged them to take in the 
recruiting stations wherever they happened to be. 
They mixed fun with their seriousness in such propor- 
tions as they believed would please all classes in their 
audiences ; and in their way they did as much to keep 
the soldiers cheerful as Tom Paine had done fourscore 
years before. 

So accustomed is the public mind to associating 
Lincoln and Grant as coworkers for the Union cause 
that few persons suspect that the two men never met 
till the Civil War was three-fourths over. Then, 
Congress having revived the grade of Lieutenant- 
general of the Army, Grant was ordered to Washing- 
ton to receive his promotion. Arriving early in March, 
1864, he went at once to the White House, where the 
President happened to be holding a reception in the 

[205 ] 



Walks About Washington 

east room. He held back till most of the people had 
passed, when Lincoln, recognizing him from his por- 
traits, turned to him with hand outstretched, saying : 
"This is General Grant, is it not?" 

"It is, Mr. President," answered Grant. And with 
this self-introduction, fittingly simple, the two great 
figures of the war faced each other for the first time. 



[206] 



CHAPTER VIII 
NEW FACES IN OLD PLACES 

ALTHOUGH constantly urged to take precautions 
for his own safety, Lincoln never did. He used 
to walk about the streets as freely as any ordinary 
citizen ; and night after night, during the darkest 
period of the war, he would stroll across to Secretary 
Stanton's office to talk over the latest news from the 
front. Stanton's remonstrances he would dismiss with 
a weary smile, protesting that, as far as he was aware, 
he had not an enemy in the world, but if he had, any- 
body who wished to kill him had a hundred chances 
every day — so, why be uneasy ? His second inaugural 
address was shorter than the first ; he wrote it about 
midnight of the third of March, seated in an armchair 
where he was resting after a hard day's work, and hold- 
ing the cardboard sheets in his lap. Its concluding 
words were as memorable as those of four years before : 
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, let 
us go forward with the work we have to do : to bind up 
the nation's wounds, to care for him who has borne the 

[ 207 ] 



Walks About Washington 

battle and for his widow and his orphan, and to do all 
things which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting 
peace among ourselves and with all nations." 

Early on the fourth, he went to the Capitol quietly 
and devoted the remaining hours of the morning to 
reading and signing bills. The procession which 
had been arranged to escort him was formed at the 
White House, with the President's carriage at its head, 
occupied by Mrs. Lincoln and Senators Harlan and 
Anthony. A platoon of marshals pioneered it, and a 
detachment of the Union Light Guard surrounded it. 
The crowd, recognizing the White House coachman on 
its box, but not seeing distinctly who sat behind, 
cheered it all along the line under the supposition that 
it held the President. Two companies of colored troops 
and a lodge of colored Odd Fellows were among the 
marchers, this being the first time that negroes ever 
took part in an inaugural pageant except in some 
servile capacity. 

We have already seen how Washington received the 
news of the final triumph of the Federal arms, and 
how Lincoln fell in the midst of the general rejoicing. 
Many readers of his inaugural address of that year 
have since professed to discern between its written 
lines a veiled foreboding of the end. Certain it is that 
he was an habitual dreamer, and that one dream, 

[ 208 ] 



New Faces in Old Places 

which came to him on the night before Fort Sumter 
was bombarded, was repeated on the eve of the first 
battle of Bull Run, and just before other important 
engagements. As he described it, he seemed to be on 
the water in an unfamiliar boat, "moving rapidly 
toward a dark, indefinite shore." The last recurrence 
of the dream was in the early morning hours of April 
14, 1865. We shall never know, now, whether it was 
this or some other portent that caused him to say to 
a trusted companion, not long before his death : " I 
don't think I shall live to see the end of my term. 
I try to shake off the vision, but it still keeps haunting 
me." He had received several threatening letters, 
which he kept in a separate file labeled: "Letters on 
Assassination." After his death there was found 
among these a note about the very plot in which Booth 
was the chief actor. 

Fate plays strange tricks. For a few hours that 
spring, one friend in Washington unconsciously held 
Lincoln's life in his hand. Harriet Riddle, since better 
known as Mrs. Davis, the novelist, was a pupil at a 
local convent school. Shortly before the tragedy at 
Ford's Theater, a teacher who had been on a brief 
visit to a Southern town returned, apparently labor- 
ing under some terrible excitement which she was try- 
ing to suppress. At the session of her class imme- 

[ 209] 



Walks About Washington 

diately preceding their separation for Good Friday, 
she suddenly fell upon her knees, bade them all join 
her in prayer, and poured forth, in a voice and manner 
so agonizing that the children were thrilled with a 
nameless horror, an hysterical appeal for divine mercy 
on the souls who were soon to be called before their 
Maker without warning. 

Harriet, who was an impressionable child, could 
hardly contain herself till she reached home and 
sought her father, to whom she attempted to relate the 
afternoon's occurrence. He was the District-attorney, 
and an intimate of the President's, and was so im- 
mersed in the cares of ofhce that he put her off till he 
should have more leisure. When she was awakened 
on Good Friday night by the noise of citizens and 
soldiers hurrying through the streets and calling out 
the news of the assassination, she uttered an exclama- 
tion which caught her father's attention, and then he 
listened to the tale which he had once waved aside. 
"Why did you not tell me this before V he demanded. 
It was then too late to do more than collect such evi- 
dence as he might from the pupils to aid the detectives ; 
but the teacher who had uttered that awful prayer had 
fled and could never be traced. No one could longer 
doubt her guilty knowledge of the plot, probably 
acquired during her visit in the South. 

[ 210] 



New Faces in Old Places 

The oath with which Vice-president Johnson took 
upon himself the obhgations of the Presidency was 
administered to him at his rooms in the Kirkwood 
House, a hostelry on the Pennsylvania Avenue corner 
now occupied by the Hotel Raleigh. Of his adminis- 
tration, the most broadly interesting incident was 
the impeachment trial described in an earlier chapter ; 
and in our reflections on how history is shaped, another 
personal anecdote seems worthy of a place. Its hero- 
ine was Miss Vinnie Ream, the sculptor, who later 
became Mrs. Hoxie. 

As his trial drew near its close, and Johnson's friends 
and enemies were able to figure out pretty accurately 
how the Senate was going to divide, it became plain 
that the issue would hang on a single vote. If all the 
Senators counted against the President stood firm, he 
would be convicted, thirty-six to eighteen ; but Sec- 
retary Stanton insisted that Ross of Kansas was pre- 
paring to go over from the majority to the minority. 
Ross was occupying a room in the same house with 
Miss Ream on Capitol Hill, and General Daniel E. 
Sickles, who was acquainted with him, was deputed to 
see him on the night before the roll-call and try to hold 
him fast against the President. Miss Ream hap- 
pened to meet the General at the door, ushered him 
into the parlor but refused to let him see the Senator, 

[211] 



Walks About Washington 

and held him at bay till dawn the following morning, 
when he gave up the effort as fruitless and went home. 
If she had weakened for a moment, there is no telling 
what might have happened, for Sickles was in a posi- 
tion to have brought very heavy pressure to bear upon 
Ross. The roll-call showed thirty-five for convic- 
tion to nineteen against — less than the two-thirds 
required to convict ; and it was Ross's vote that saved 
Johnson. 

At the inauguration of Grant, the relations between 
him and the retiring President were so strained, owing 
to the recent struggle at the War Department, that 
Johnson refused to attend the ceremonies unless it 
could be arranged that he and Grant should ride in 
separate carriages. General Rawlins therefore acted 
as escort to Grant and Vice-president Colfax. Grant 
was not much of a speaker, but the delivery of his 
inaugural address is remembered for a pretty incident. 
His little daughter Nellie, confused by the continuous 
bustle all about her, obeyed on the platform the same 
childish impulse which moved her in any exigency at 
home, and, running to his side, nestled against him, 
clasping one of his hands in both of hers and holding it 
all the time he was speaking. At the ball that evening, 
access to the supper-room and to the cloak-room was 
by the same door, which caused a blockade in the 

[ 212 ] 



New Faces in Old Places 

passage. The servants in charge of the wraps became 
hopelessly demoralized, with the result that Horace 
Greeley had to wait two hours to recover his white 
overcoat and lost his hat entirely. The torrent of 
lurid expletives he let loose during his ordeal shared 
space and importance, in the next day's newspapers, 
with the thirty-five thousand dollars' worth of dia- 
monds worn by Mrs. John Morrissey, wife of the prize- 
fighter. 

Grant's second inauguration began inauspiciously, 
his aged father falling down a flight of stairs at the 
Capitol and suffering injuries which finally caused his 
death. The day was stormy, and the evening the 
coldest known in Washington for years. Unfortu- 
nately, the only place where the ball could be held 
was an improvised wooden building, through the crevices 
of which the icy wind blew a gale ; and, to complete 
everybody's misery, the heating apparatus broke 
down, so that many of the ladies who had come in 
conventional toilets had to protect their shoulders with 
fur mantillas, while their escorts put on overcoats. 
The President was so cold that he forgot the figures 
in the state quadrille which he was to lead, and was 
obliged to depend on General Sherman to push him 
through them. The supper was ruined, the meats and 
salads competing in temperature with the ices ; all 

[ 213 ] 



Walks About Washington 

that could be saved was the coflFee, which was kept 
hot over alcohol lamps. The breath of the members 
of the band congealed in their instruments, and several 
hundred canaries which were to sing in the intervals 
between band pieces shriveled into little downy balls 
on the bottoms of their cages and uttered not a trill. 

The key-note of Grant's administration on its politi- 
cal side was his steadfast faith that any friend of his 
was capable of filling any office in his gift. He named 
Alexander T. Stewart, the New York dry-goods mer- 
chant, for Secretary of the Treasury, but had to let 
him resign on account of technical objections raised 
in the Senate. Wendell Phillips having come to his 
defense at a hostile mass-meeting in Boston, Grant 
wished to make him Minister to England, but the 
offer was declined because Mrs. Phillips would not 
be able to go abroad at that time. Caleb Gushing 
of Massachusetts, though a stanch Democrat before 
the war, had become an "administration man" as 
soon as the Union was threatened, and thereby aroused 
the admiration of Grant, who named him for Chief 
Justice after Chase's death ; but the same political 
independence which so won Grant had incensed a 
number of Senators, who caused the rejection of the 
nomination. 

Later, however, Grant succeeded in sending Gushing 

[214] 



New Faces in Old Places 

as Minister to Spain. Gushing was a man full of pecu- 
liarities, which strengthened with his years. At an 
early age he discarded the umbrella as a nuisance and 
braved storms unprotected. Naturally his hats suf- 
fered. At the time he received his billet for Spain, 
he was wearing one of the chimney-pot variety, which, 
from its appearance, he must have bought many years 
before. The nap was a good deal worn, there was a 
slight bulge in the top, and, thanks to the squareness 
of his head, he could wear it with either side in front. 
When some one suggested that he had better buy a 
new hat before presenting himself at the Spanish court, 
he considered the question solemnly, turning the old 
hat around and examining it with care before answer- 
ing : "No, I think I shall wait and see what the fash- 
ions are in Madrid." Though ready to spend his 
money freely for any public purpose, in private indul- 
gences the frugal notions inherited from his New 
England ancestry came to the front. Hardly anybody 
ever saw him light a fresh cigar, but he used to carry 
about in his pocket a case packed with partly con- 
sumed stumps, to one of which he would help himself 
when he wished a smoke, only to let it die again as 
soon as he had become interested in talking. 
^ It was because of his liking for both Blaine and 
Conkling that Grant strove, as his last act in the 

[215] 



Walks About Washington 

White House, to reconcile the two men, who were 
intensely hostile to each other. Their quarrel had 
grown out of a passage in debate when Conkling had 
made some very sarcastic comments on Blaine. The 
latter retorted in kind. "The contempt of that large- 
minded gentleman," said he, glancing toward Conk- 
ling, "is so wilting, his haughty disdain, his grandilo- 
quent swell, his majestic, supereminent, overpowering, 
turkey-gobbler strut have been so crushing to myself 
and all the members of this House, that I know it was 
an act of temerity for me to venture upon a contro- 
versy with him." Referring to a recent newspaper 
article in which Conkling had been likened to the late 
Henry Winter Davis, Blaine went on : "The gentleman 
took it seriously, and it has given his strut additional 
pomposity. The resemblance is great. It is strik- 
ing. Hyperion to a satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud 
to marble, a dunghill to a diamond, a singed cat to a 
Bengal tiger, a whining puppy to a roaring lion!" 

Conkling never forgave this attack. It seems like 
a small thing to change the whole current of a nation's 
history, but it probably cost Blaine the Presidency; 
for in 1884 the disaffection of the Republicans in 
Conkling's old home in central New York gave the State 
to Cleveland. President Grant's effort to bring the 
foes together failed because Blaine, though ready to 

[216] 



New Faces in Old Places 

make any ordinary concessions, balked when Conk- 
ling demanded that he should confess his "mud to 
marble" speech to have been "unqualifiedly and mali- 
ciously false." 

In 1874, Miss Nellie Grant was married to Algernon 
Sartoris, a British subject. She was her father's pet. 
At her wedding, he stood beside his wife to receive the 
guests, his face wearing a sphinx-like calm, though 
every one knew how he would feel the parting soon to 
follow. His forced composure continued till Nellie 
had left the house with her husband, and then he dis- 
appeared. An old friend, seeking him up-stairs, tapped 
at his chamber door, and, as there was no response, 
pushed it slightly ajar and looked in. There, on the 
bed, face downward, his eyes buried in his hands and 
his whole frame shaken with grief, lay the great soldier, 
sobbing like a child. 

Throughout the Grant administration, the social 
arbiter for Washington was Mrs. Hamilton Fish, wife 
of the Secretary of State. She was a woman of the 
world, broad-minded and efficient, but the White House 
was not a very- ceremonious place in that era. When 
the new Danish Minister called, for instance, in full 
regalia, to present his credentials, he found no one 
prepared to receive him, even the negro boy who met 
him at the door having to hurry into a coat before usher- 

[217] 



Walks About Washington 

ing him in. Persons who attended the state dinners 
say that Grant often turned down his wine-glasses. 
It was, as far as I have ever heard, the first instance of 
a President's doing this ; and it paved the way for 
the reign of cold water which came in with the next 
President, Rutherford B. Hayes. 

Hayes entered oihce under cloudy auspices. His 
competitor for the Presidency was Samuel J. Tilden, 
a powerful Democratic leader. In some of the South- 
ern States which were still in the throes of reconstruc- 
tion, United States troops were doing police duty, the 
Governors were appointees of a Republican President, 
and the election machinery was in the hands of Repub- 
lican office-holders, though the bulk of the white voting 
population was Democratic. In these States the offi- 
cial canvassers had reported the Republican electors 
chosen, the electors had cast their ballots for Hayes, 
and the Governors had signed and forwarded their 
certificates accordingly, in defiance of Democratic 
protests that the returns were fictitious. Without 
these States, the Democratic candidate had one hun- 
dred and eighty-four of the one hundred and eighty- 
five electoral votes necessary to a choice, while the 
Republican candidate could win only with their aid ; 
so a single electoral vote would tip the scale either 
way. The duty of opening the certificates and an- 

[218] 



St. PauVs, the Oldest Church in the District 



New Faces in Old Places 

nouncing the results devolved upon the President of 
the Senate, a strong Republican. 

The Democrats made so serious charges of falsifi- 
cation of the records that the whole country became 
much excited, and fears were entertained in Congress 
that another civil war might be impending. In the 
midst of the turmoil, a joint committee of both cham- 
bers worked out a plan for a bi-partisan Electoral 
Commission, to consist of five Senators, five Represen- 
tatives, and five Justices of the Supreme Court, before 
whom all the questions at issue should be argued by 
counsel, and whose decisions should place the result 
beyond immediate appeal. The Commission, as made 
up, contained eight Republicans and seven Democrats, 
and its decisions were always given by a vote of eight 
to seven. It held its sessions in the room now occupied 
by the Supreme Court, where it began its work on 
February i, 1877, and at the end of a month rendered 
its last ruling, which gave the Presidency to Mr. 
Hayes. 

As the fourth of March was to fall on Sunday, 
President Grant had Hayes meet Chief Justice Waite 
in the red parlor of the White House on the evening of 
the third and take the oath privately. The inaugural 
ball was omitted because the Electoral Commission 
had finished its work too late to enable preparations 

[ 219 I 



Walks About Washifigton 

to be made. President Hayes was not nearly so con- 
spicuous a figure during the following four years as 
his wife, who was a woman of very positive convictions, 
especially on the subject of alcoholic stimulants. At 
her instance, wines were banished from the White House 
table, the only exception occurring when the Grand 
Dukes Alexis and Constantin of Russia visited Wash- 
ington. It is said to have been some incident at the 
entertainment given in their honor which fixed Mr. and 
Mrs. Hayes definitely in the determination not to de- 
part again from the rule of teetotalism. 

The newspapers poked a good deal of innocent fun 
at the Hayes parties on the score that, though the ban 
was never lifted from the ordinary intoxicants drunk 
from glasses, there was always plenty of strong Roman 
punch served in orange-skins. The nickname which 
presently fastened itself to this deceptive course was 
the "life-saving station." In his diary, however, Mr. 
Hayes has left us the statement: "The joke of the 
Roman punch oranges was not on us, but on the drink- 
ing people. My orders were to flavor them rather 
strongly with the same flavor that is found in Jamaica 
rum. This took ! It was refreshing to hear the 
drinkers say, with a smack of their lips, 'Would they 
were hot!'" I am bound to add that, in spite of the 
good man's enjoyment of his ruse, the suspicion still 

[ 220 ] 



New Faces in Old Places 

survives that his steward used to put a private and 
particular interpretation on his orders. 

Although Mr. Hayes was not a member of any 
church, his wife was an ardent Methodist, and one 
marked feature of their life in Washington was the 
Sunday evening sociables at the White House, when 
Cabinet officers and other dignitaries would come in 
and pass a couple of hours singing hymns, with light 
conversation between. Among the most interested 
attendants at these gatherings was General Sherman, 
who used to join vigorously in the singing — or try to. 
Another, who was destined to play an independent 
part in history a few years afterward, was a clever 
young Congressman from Ohio named William McKin- 
ley. Junior. He had been a volunteer soldier in Hayes's 
regiment early in the war, and they had grown to be 
fast friends. At one of the first of the secular recep- 
tions during the Hayes regime, the guest of honor was 
a budding celebrity. Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii. 
She labored under the handicap of knowing no Eng- 
lish, and had to carry on most of her conversation 
through an interpreter. 

President Hayes provoked a good deal of criticism 
among the Southerners in Washington by appointing 
Frederick Douglass, the negro ex-slave and orator, 
United States Marshal of the District, for the office 

[221 ] 



Walks About Washington 

had up to that time carried with it the duties of a sort 
of majordomo at the President's receptions, including 
the presentation of the guests. A visitor to Washing- 
ton about these days who did not attend the state 
receptions, but held some of his own in the open air, 
was a man of small and unimpressive stature, with 
black hair and mustache and a rather good-natured 
face, whose portrait appeared repeatedly in the illus- 
trated papers, and whose name carried with it a cer- 
tain terror to timid souls who expected to see him launch 
a social revolution. This was Dennis Kearney, who 
had made himself notorious by his speeches in the 
sand-lots of San Francisco, declaring that "the Chinese 
must go," and denouncing every one, regardless of 
race, who had been thrifty enough to accumulate any 
of this world's goods. His remarkable coinage of words 
and generally unique English gave currency to a mul- 
titude of epigrammatic phrases, which for several 
years were known as "Kearneyisms." 

All through the campaign of 1880 a great deal was 
made of the sayings and doings of "Grandma Gar- 
field," the mother of the Republican candidate : an 
old lady of a type rarely seen now, who was not ashamed 
of her years, w^ore her cap and spectacles as badges of 
distinction, and never forgot that, however great he 
might have grown, her son was still her son. Nor did 

[ 222 ] 



New Faces in Old Places 

he forget It; and on the east portico of the Capitol, 
with his assent to the constitutional oath barely off 
his lips, his first act as President was to bend down and 
kiss her. The Inauguration was notable, too, for the 
Important part taken in the parade by the defeated 
competitor for the Presidency, General Winfield S. 
Hancock. He was a splendid-looking man and a 
superb horseman, and In his uniform as a Major- 
general was the most imposing object in the procession. 
The spectators, delighted with his sportsmanlike spirit, 
paid him as hearty a tribute as they paid the President. 
A few weeks after the inauguration, a fierce quarrel 
broke out over the distribution of federal patronage, 
splitting the Republican party Into two factions. The 
angry irruptions of the newspapers on both sides, 
which would have passed with any normal mind for 
what they were worth, made a more serious Impression 
on that of Charles J. Guiteau, a degenerate with a 
craving for self-advertisement ; and, failing in his 
attempt to obtain an office for himself, he saw In the 
controversy an opportunity to pose as a hero by re- 
moving its cause. Garfield, as a graduate of Williams 
College, had arranged to attend the next commence- 
ment, and was In the railway station on the second 
of July, 1 88 1, on the way to his train, when he 
was approached by Guiteau from behind and shot. 

[ 223 ] 



Walks About Washington 

He lingered, first in the White House and later at 
Elberon, New Jersey, whither he was taken after the 
weather became too sultry in Washington, till the nine- 
teenth of September. The assassin was brought to 
trial at the winter term of the SuprernejQourt of the 
District, convicted of murder, and hanged. 

On the evening of the day of Garfield's death, the 
Vice-president, Chester A. Arthur, was sworn in at 
his home in New York City, in the presence of his son 
and a few personal friends, including Elihu Root. 
A more formal administration of the oath took place 
in the Vice-president's room at the Capitol in Wash- 
ington three days later. Chief Justice Waite officiating, 
with Associate Justices Harlan and Matthews, General 
Grant, and several Senators and Representatives as 
witnesses. After signing the oath, Arthur read a brief 
address and returned at once to his office. 

Arthur was a widower, and his only daughter was 
still too young to take full charge of his household 
affairs, so his sister, Mrs. McElroy, presided at all his 
social functions. He was very fond of music, and the 
great operatic and concert stars were always sure of a 
warm welcome from him when they passed through 
Washington. The finest of his dinners was that 
which he gave for Christine Nilsson. As the company 
rose from the table and he offered his arm to escort 

[ 224] 



New Faces in Old Places 

her back to the east room, the Marine Band in the 
corridor, responding to a secret signal, began playing 
one of her favorite airs, and, with the spontaneous 
delight of a child, she fell to singing it, her voice soaring 
bird-like above the instruments as she walked. This 
surprise for Miss Nilsson was typical of the graceful 
things Arthur was fond of doing, and in which he set 
the pace for the members of his official family. Ex- 
president Grant and his wife, on their return from 
their tour of the world, dropped in upon Washington, 
as it chanced, just when a reception was about to be 
held at the White House. Arthur sent his carriage 
for them. Mrs. Frelinghuysen, wife of the Secretary 
of State, was on that occasion filling Mrs. McElroy's 
accustomed station next to the President in the receiv- 
ing line ; but on the entrance of the distinguished 
guests she withdrew, gently pressing Mrs. Grant into 
her place as hostess of the evening. 

As the first Democratic President since the war, 
Grover Cleveland of New York found a hard task 
laid out for him. He realized that he owed his election 
chiefly to the reform element in both the great parties, 
yet it was his own party that claimed him, and, having 
been out of power for a quarter-century, it was not 
over-modest in its demands. His efforts at tariff 
reduction stirred the protectionists to such activity in 

[225 ] 



IValks About Washington 

the next campaign that Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, 
a Republican and a grandson of "Old Tippecanoe," 
was elected in November, 1888. When he entered 
office, Cleveland was a bachelor forty-eight years old. 
In June, 1886, he married Miss Frances Folsom, the 
daughter of a former law partner to whom he had been 
warmly attached. The wedding ceremony was per- 
formed in the White House, only a small party of 
friends attending. Mrs. Cleveland, who was young 
and of attractive presence, made friends for herself 
on every side and did much to soften the antagonisms 
which her husband's course in ofhce necessarily aroused. 
The clerk of the weather seemed to have been stor- 
ing his rain for weeks in order to let it all out upon 
Harrison's inauguration, and the street pageant was 
a drenched and draggled affair. The civilities of the 
outgoing to the incoming President gave the day its 
one touch of cheerfulness. Cleveland sat on the rear 
seat of the open landau which bore them to the Capitol, 
the front seat being occupied by Senators Hoar and 
Cockrell, acting as a committee of escort. In order 
to enable Harrison to lift his hat to the people who 
cheered him from the sidewalk, Cleveland raised his 
own umbrella and held it over his companion. When 
Cockrell undertook to do the same for Hoar, his um- 
brella broke. Cleveland at once borrowed an umbrella 

[226] 



New Faces in Old Places 

of his Secretary of the Treasury in the next carriage, 
and, when Mr. Hoar demurred, reassured him with a 
laugh: "Don't be alarmed, Senator; we're honest, 
and I'll see that it gets back!" As they drove down 
the Avenue, most of the applause, naturally, was for 
the President-elect ; but once in a while a spectator 
would shout, "Good-by, Grover!" or something of 
the sort, and Cleveland would return the greeting with 
a smile and a nod. So much kindly feeling was mani- 
fested throughout the morning that Harrison, who was 
temperamentally the least effusive of men, was deeply 
touched ; and he could not forbear referring in his 
inaugural address to the courtesy he had received at 
Cleveland's hands, adding that he should endeavor to 
show like consideration to his successor four years 
later. 

And four years later Providence gave him the 
chance, which he improved as far as in him lay. In 
the meantime he had passed through many sad experi- 
ences. Factional divisions, almost as serious as those 
that culminated in the assassination of Garfield, had 
broken up his party. His Secretary of State, Mr. 
Blaine, had parted company with him on the eve of 
the meeting of the Republican National Convention 
of 1892, become his rival for the Presidential nomina- 
tion, and died the following winter. Two of Blaine's 

[ 227] 



Walks About Washington 

sons and one of his daughters had already died. Mr. 
Windom, Secretary of the Treasury, had fallen dead 
at a public banquet, just after finishing a memorable 
speech in defense of the administration. General 
Tracy, Secretary of the Navy, had lost his wife and 
daughter in a iire which destroyed their Washington 
home. The wife of the President's secretary, Mr. 
Halford, had died; and to crown his load of sorrows, 
Mr. Harrison lost his own wife and her father almost 
at the time of his defeat for reelection. 

On the other hand, he had enjoyed the presence in 
the White House of his daughter, Mrs. McKee, with 
her two children, one of whom, a bright little boy named 
in his honor, was his special favorite and playfellow 
out of office hours. The south garden was the scene 
of many of their frolics, which recalled the legends 
about John Adams and his juvenile tyrant. One inci- 
dent will never be forgotten by those who witnessed 
it. "Baby McKee," as Benjamin junior was com- 
monly called, used to drive a goat before his little 
wagon. This amusement was confined, as a rule, 
to occasions when the President could be near at 
hand to watch proceedings, for the goat was an erratic 
brute. One day it caught the President napping 
and started at full gallop for an open gate. Mr. Harri- 
son, suddenly awakened to the situation, dashed 

[228] 



New Faces in Old Places 

after. The goat succeeded in pulling the wagon 
through the narrow aperture without a collision, but, 
once in the street, bolted straight for a trench in which 
workmen were laying a pipe. By a succession of 
mighty leaps, such as probably no dignitary of his 
rank had ever made before, Mr. Harrison contrived 
to get in front of the animal, seize it by the bit, and 
swing it around in the nick of time to prevent its 
jumping the excavation and tumbling wagon and 
boy into the mud at the bottom. The President 
was puffing hard as he returned triumphantly to the 
White House, dragging the reluctant goat by the 
headstall, under a running fire of complaints from his 
grandson for spoiling the morning ride. 

When Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland came back in 1893, 
they brought with them their infant daughter Ruth, 
and open gates in the south garden of the White House 
became at once a thing of the past; for the garden 
was the child's only playground, and an epidemic of 
kidnapping had recently broken out. For further 
security, and in order to have one place where his 
domestic hours would be free from business interrup- 
tions, the President rented the small estate known as 
Woodley, in one of the northwestern suburbs. Here 
he lived during the greater part of the year, driving in 
daily to his work and spending a night in Washington 

[ 229 ] 



Walks About Washington 

now and then if necessary. By that time the official 
encroachments on the family space of the White House 
had reached a point where either the building must be 
enlarged or a separate dwelling provided for the Presi- 
dent. A scheme of enlargement had been broached 
in Harrison's term, but the plans drawn under Mrs. 
Harrison's direction changed the shape of the old 
mansion in too many essential features to win the 
approval of the architects consulted, and the matter 
was dropped. The Clevelands, by living at Woodley, 
escaped some of the cramping the Harrisons had 
suffered, and the McKinleys, who came in next, got 
along pretty well because they had no children. 

As Senator La Follette once said, McKinley never 
had a fair chance as President to show what was in 
him : his first term was broken into by the Spanish 
War, and his second was cut off almost at its beginning 
by assassination. He was sweet-natured and a born 
manager of men, and no one who ever filled the Presi- 
dential chair left behind him a more fragrant memory. 
As his murder occurred in Buffalo, and Czolgosz, who 
killed him, was tried and put to death there, the epi- 
sode serves our present purpose only in leading up to 
the accession of Theodore Roosevelt of New York, the 
Vice-president, who was recalled from a summer 
vacation in the mountains to take the head of the 

[ 230] 



New Faces in Old Places 

state. His inauguration was of the simplest sort, at the 
house of a friend in BuflPalo, where some members of the 
McKinley Cabinet and a few other gentlemen met to 
witness the administration of the oath. 

His first few months in the White House convinced 
the new President that something must be done with- 
out delay to relieve the building, which had become not 
only inconvenient but dangerous. For several years, 
when repairs had been found necessary, they had been 
made by temporary patchwork, with little reference 
to their effect on anything else ; not a few of the floor 
timbers subject to most strain were badly rotted, and 
others stood in so perilous relations to the lighting 
apparatus that only by a miracle had the house escaped 
destruction by fire. Fortunately Congress had begun 
to show some interest in a long-mooted project for 
bringing the city back to the plan laid out by L'Enfant ; 
and a generous appropriation was procured for making 
over the White House to resemble as nearly as prac- 
ticable the President's Palace built by Hoban. All 
the latter half of 1902 was given to this work. The 
office was moved out of the main building and planted 
in a little house of its own on the same spot where Jef- 
ferson used to have his workroom, at the extremity of 
the western terrace. The eastern terrace, of which 
nothing but the buried foundations remained, was 

[ 231 ] 



VFalks About W^ashington 

rebuilt, and so arranged as to afford an entrance for 
guests at the larger receptions. 

Inside of the main house, the old lines were kept 
intact as far as the comfort of its occupants would 
permit, though the restoration did work some changes. 
The noble east room, which for many years was deco- 
rated in the style of the saloon of a river steamboat, 
wears now the air of simple elegance designed for it 
before steamboats were invented ; and the state 
dining-room has been so enlarged that future Presi- 
dents will not be forced, on especially great occasions, 
to spread their tables in the east room in order to spare 
the diners the annoyance of bumping elbows. Up- 
stairs the changes have been rather of function than of 
form. The room which, from Grant's day to Mc- 
Kinley's, was used for Cabinet meetings, and where our 
peace protocol with Spain was signed, is now a library ; 
that in which Lincoln read to his official family the 
first draft of his Emancipation Proclamation is now a 
bedroom, and a like fate has befallen the former 
library, where Cleveland penned his Venezuela message. 
The old lines of partition, however, are all there. Logs 
still blaze and crackle in the fireplace beside which 
Jackson puffed his corncob pipe. The windows through 
which Lincoln looked over at the Virginia hills have not 
changed even the shape or size of their old-fashioned 

[ 232 ] 



New Faces in Old Places 

panes. The places where our first royal guest slept, 
and where Garfield passed his long ordeal of suffering, 
remain bedchambers. 

Mrs. Roosevelt, who loved the White House and had 
made a study of its architectural history, personally 
supervised every stage of its restoration. When the 
alterations were finished, she took the same interest 
in the process of refurnishing, so that the final product 
was, as nearly as modern conditions would permit, the 
White House of a century ago. The removal of need- 
less obstructions was one of the most successful ele- 
ments in the renovation, as it made possible the han- 
dling of a crowd of fifteen hundred or two thousand 
people without confusion. Socially, the Roosevelt 
administration was in every way the most brilliant 
Washington has ever known. Mrs. Roosevelt was a 
perfect hostess, and the many-sided President drew 
about him the leaders in every line of thought and 
action. In his democracy of companionship and his 
forceful way of doing whatever he laid his hand to, 
he was another Jackson ; in his attraction for men of 
letters, students of statecraft, artists, and scientific 
workers, he revived the best traditions of Jefferson. 

The four years of Taft are too fresh in the public 
memory to call for extended mention. Taft was forced 
to have his inauguration in the Senate Chamber on 

[233 ] 



Walks About Washington 

account of the execrable weather, for the worst blizzard 
prevailed on the fourth of March, 1909, that had visited 
Washington for ten years. The railroads leading into 
the city were blockaded, so that many passengers who 
had come from a distance to attend the ceremony 
were compelled to forsake their trains a mile or more 
from their destination and plow their own way in, as the 
sole alternative of camping in the cars for an indefi- 
nite number of hours. Only by the utmost diligence 
on the part of the municipal laborers were the streets 
kept in condition for the parade to pass, and most of 
the spectators' stands erected on the sidewalks were 
utterly deserted. Mr. Roosevelt having announced, 
some time before, his intention to leave for New York 
as soon as he had seen his successor sworn in, Mrs. 
Taft made the drive between the Capitol and the White 
House by her husband's side. 

Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, the next President, 
signalized his advent by notifying the citizens of Wash- 
ington that he did not wish any inaugural ball, and 
the preparations already under way were abandoned. 
His administration is still writing its own history. 



[234I 



St. Johns, " the President's Church" 



I 



CHAPTER IX 
THE REGION 'ROUND ABOUT 

NO American city has suburbs more interesting than 
Washington's. Those that hold first rank, 
naturally, are on the Virginia side of the Potomac, the 
region most redolent of the memory of the great 
patriot whose name was given to the capital. The 
Arlington estate, which lies nearest, was never the 
home of George Washington, but he visited it often, 
for it belonged by inheritance to the grandson of his 
wife by her earlier marriage ; and George and Martha 
were so pleased with it that they built a little summer- 
house about where the flagstaff now stands, whence 
they could overlook the work going on in the new 
federal city across the river. Young George Custis, 
owner of the place, built the spacious dwelling sub- 
stantially as we now find it, finishing it four years 
after Washington's death. He left the property to his 
daughter Mary, who in 183 1 became the wife of Robert 
E. Lee, then a lieutenant in the regular army, but thirty 
years later commander-in-chief of the Confederate 

[235 1 



Walks About Washington 

forces. Their wedding took place in the old drawing- 
room, where visitors now register their names. 

Lee had just reached colonel's rank when the Civil 
War broke out. He was opposed to secession, but, 
faithful to the traditions of State sovereignty in which 
he had been trained, decided that it was his duty to 
sacrifice all other ties and follow the fortunes of Vir- 
ginia. After a painful interview with General Scott, 
who strove vainly to shake his resolution, he wrote, in 
the library across the hall from the drawing-room, his 
resignation of his commission in the United States 
army. Then, accompanied by his family, he set out 
for the South, never to return. In a few days the 
Federal troops took possession of the estate as impor- 
tant to the protection of Washington. Here Mc- 
Clellan worked out his plans for the reorganization of 
the Union army following the Bull Run disaster. 
A few years afterward, there being no one at hand to 
pay the war-tax laid on the land, it was sold under the 
hammer, and the Government bid it in. Before 
the sale had been definitely ordered, a Northern rela- 
tive of the Lees came forward with an oifer to pay the 
levy and costs, but the tax commissioners declined the 
tender on the ground that the delinquent taxpayer 
had not made it in person. 

Meanwhile, the house had been turned into a mili- 

[236] 



The Region 'Round About 

tary hospital, and the patients who died there were 
buried close by. When it became necessary to have 
a soldiers' burial-ground near Washington, Quarter- 
master-general Meigs was permitted to lay off two hun- 
dred acres of the estate for the purpose. This was the 
beginning of the National Cemetery of to-day, where 
about eighteen thousand soldiers and sailors have found 
a last resting-place. 

Some time after the war. General Lee's son brought 
suit for the recovery of the property and won it, the 
Supreme Court holding that the tax commissioners 
ought to have accepted the tender made them ; but 
Mr. Lee compromised with the Government, convey- 
ing to it his interest for one hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars. Since then the house has been put into excel- 
lent repair, and the land about it suitably enclosed 
and improved. On the upper edge of the estate has 
been established the military post known as Fort 
Myer, where cavalry-training is carried to a high point, 
weather observations are made, and a wireless tele- 
graph station exchanges despatches with the Eiffel 
tower in Paris. Some of the land down by the river 
has been made over into an experimental farm under 
the auspices of the Department of Agriculture. 

Happily, the Cemetery has been kept free from 
tawdry memorials and inconsequential ornament, and 

[237] 



Walks About Washington 

enveloped in an atmosphere of dignity well fitting its 
sacred character. Its most impressive tomb is that 
dedicated to the Unknown Dead, which contains the 
remains of more than two thousand soldiers found on 
various battlefields but never identified. "Their names 
and deaths," says the inscription, "are recorded in the 
archives of their country, and its grateful citizens honor 
them as their noble army of martyrs." Not far away 
is a line amphitheater with a carpet of turf and a can- 
opy of trellised vines, where memorial exercises are 
held annually on Decoration Day, the President almost 
always taking part. There is also a Temple of Fame, 
bearing the names of Washington and Lincoln, with 
those of the military leaders who particularly distin- 
guished themselves in the Civil War. An extension 
has recently been made in the grounds devoted to 
sepulture, where the most conspicuous monument is 
that which commemorates the tragedy of the battle- 
ship Maine in Havana harbor. The base is built to 
represent a gun-turret on the deck of a man-of-war; 
on this are inscribed the names of the victims, while 
from the center of the turret rises a mast with a fight- 
ing-top. A larger and more ambitious amphitheater, 
also, has been laid out in the extension. 

From Arlington we can go, by the same road that 
Washington trod on his trips, to Alexandria, a town 

[238] 



The Region 'Round About 

which fairly reeks with associations, from the colo- 
nial names of some of its streets — King, Queen, Prince, 
Princess, Duke, Duchess, Royal — to its remnants 
of cobblestone pavement laid by the Hessian prisoners 
in the Revolution. Here is the old Carlyle mansion, 
where General Braddock had his headquarters before 
starting on his ill-fated expedition against the French 
and Indians. In its blue drawing-room Washington, 
as a young surveyor ambitious to serve his king, re- 
ceived the first rudiments of his military education ; 
and at the foot of yonder staircase one evening stood 
the same Washington, expectant, while pretty Sally 
Fairfax tripped lightly down to join him and be 
led through the opening cotillion at her coming-out 
ball. 

This must have been a splendid mansion in its time, 
with a terraced garden descending to the river-bank, 
and a fountain in the midst of the flower-beds. It 
was built on the ruins of a fort used by the early settlers 
against the Indians ; the living-rooms of the fort be- 
came the cellar of the mansion, and the fort proper 
the plaza upon which the main hallway opens. You 
enter the house now through a cozy little tea-room es- 
tablished by a group of young ladies of Alexandria ; 
and it may be your good fortune to be shown about 
the premises by one of them who is herself a member 

[ 239] 



Walks About Washington 

of the historic Carlyle and Fairfax families and 
familiar with all their ancestral tales. 

A prominent site in town is covered by Christ Church, 
where Washington worshiped, and where you can see 
the square family pew for which he paid the record 
price, thirty-six pounds and ten shillings. The church 
stands in a large, old-fashioned yard, sprinkled with 
the gravestones of men and women of local renown. 
Hither, on Sundays, drove the ladies from Mount 
Vernon, seven miles away, in a chariot with a mahog- 
any body, green Venetian blinds, and pictured panels, 
drawn by four horses. The General did not take 
kindly to the coach for himself, but rode beside it on 
his favorite saddle-horse, followed at a respectful dis- 
tance by Bishop, his colored body-servant, in scarlet 
livery. After service he would linger in the church- 
yard, chatting with his friends, till Bishop reminded 
him of the flight of time by bringing up his horse and 
holding the stirrup for him to mount. 

A spirited historical controversy has been waged 
over the question of Washington's attitude toward 
religion. The weight of evidence favors the idea that, 
though not bound by dogma, he had a broad faith in 
the philosophy of Christianity, always knelt with the 
rest of the congregation and joined in the responses, 
and occasionally remained for the communion. He 

[ 240] 



The Region 'Round About 

certainly encouraged his slaves to believe in the effi- 
cacy of prayer; for once, when a long-continued 
drought threatened to ruin his crops, he called his 
farm-hands together on Sunday morning and bade 
them put up their united supplication for rain. They 
did so, and to their great delight the flood-gates of 
heaven suddenly opened and deluged the earth ; but 
the Washington family were caught in the storm on 
their way home from church, and could not make shelter 
soon enough to save Mrs. Washington's best gown from 
serious damage or the General from being soaked to 
the skin. 

In his younger days, Washington was fond of danc- 
ing, and used to come into town to attend assemblies 
at Clagett's Tavern. The assembly-hall was up-stairs. 
It was afterward divided into three rooms, one of 
which, having fallen into the hands of persons who 
respect its pedigree, has been pretty well preserved. 
In the old times it had at one end a gallery for the 
musicians, accessible only by a ladder, which was 
removed as soon as they were all in their places. This 
arrangement was designed to compel them to stay at 
their work till released, and to drink only what was 
passed up to them with the approval of the floor- 
committee. 

Across the corridor from the old assembly-hall was 

[ 241 ] 



W^alks About Washington 

a chamber that later became interesting through its 
occupancy by an unknown woman who came to the 
tavern one morning in 1816, plainly ini ill health. She 
was accompanied by a few servants, -with whom she 
conversed only in French, and neither she nor they 
could be drawn into any communication with other 
persons, except what was necessary to engage accom- 
modations and order meals. On the fourth day of 
her stay, there appeared on the scene a strange man, 
who from various indications was assumed to be 
her husband. An hour after his arrival she died in 
his arms. He buried her in St. Paul's cemetery on the 
outskirts of the town, planting a willow-tree over her 
grave, and raising at its head a stone inscribed to the 
memory simply of "A Female Stranger," with this 
stanza from Pope's " Unfortunate Lady " : 

" How loved, how honored once, avails thee not," 
To whom related, or by whom begot. 
A heap of dust alone remains of thee, 
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be." 

And the Female Stranger remains a mystery to this 
day, though many efforts have been made to discover 
her identity. A local suspicion that she was Theo- 
dosia Allston, the daughter of Aaron Burr, seems to 
be discredited by the fact that Theodosia's disappear- 
ance occurred in 1812, and that her husband was 

[ 242 ] 



The Regio?t 'Round About 

dead long before the Stranger came to Clagett's 
Tavern. 

How public-spirited a citizen Washington was is 
attested by his having laid the foundation of Alex- 
andria's free-school system, presented the town with 
its first fire-engine, organized its first militia company, 
and got up a lottery to raise a fund for improving the 
country roads thereabout. He was an earnest Free- 
mason, and the lodge named for him owns a number 
of relics like the chair in which he presided as Master, 
his apron, his wedding gloves, his spurs, his pruning- 
knife, and a penknife which his mother gave him when 
he was eleven years old and which he carried till he 
died. It has also the last authentic portrait of him 
taken from life, a pastel done by William Williams of 
Philadelphia. 

In and around Alexandria are other points of Inter- 
est, including the house in which Colonel Ellsworth 
was killed, and one where, It is said, Martha Wash- 
ington secreted herself for a while during her widow- 
hood for fear of a slave uprising ; a theological semi- 
nary which has graduated, among other eminent di- 
vines, Bishops Phillips Brooks of Boston and Henry 
C. Potter of New York; and the nearly obliterated 
remains of the road which, in 1765, General Braddock 
began to build into the West. 

[243 1 



Walks About Washington 

We can go to Mount Vernon by boat, or over a road 
which Congress has repeatedly, but without effect, 
been petitioned to acquire and improve. Already a 
trolley company has recognized a public demand and 
is running cars on a regular schedule from the heart 
of the capital city to the borders of Washington's old 
estate. On the way down we pass Wellington, once 
the home of Tobias Lear, whom General Washington 
hired for two hundred dollars a year to act as tutor to 
the children at Mount Vernon, promoting him later 
to the post of private secretary. In both capacities, 
his employer provided, he "will sit at my table, will 
live as I live, will mix with the company who resort 
to the house, and will be treated in every respect with 
courtesy and proper attention." Lear married three 
wives, one of them a kinswoman of the General's. 
He acquired means, removed in later life to Washing- 
ton, and became a merchant with a warehouse on the 
river. His tombstone in the Congressional Cemetery 
recites an overflowing list of his virtues and honors, 
and posterity owes him a large debt for having pre- 
served many of the Washingtoniana most valued now 
by historians. 

Mount Vernon became the property of the Wash- 
ington family by a grant from Lord Culpepper in 1670 
to John Washington, the great-grandfather of George. 

[ 244] 



The Region 'Round About 

It was christened In honor of Admiral Vernon, a friend 
of Lawrence Washington, the half-brother who brought 
George up and superintended his education. George, 
who received It by inheritance, willed it to his nephew 
Bushrod, he to his nephew John, and John to a son of 
the same name. Financial embarrassments led the 
last heir to part with some of the land ; but to an area 
of a few hundred acres. Including the mansion, the 
family tomb, and the wharf on the Potomac, he held 
fast till arrangements could be made for its purchase 
by the Mount Vernon Ladles' Association, a society 
of patriotic women who, with money privately raised, 
have restored the place and kept it in order ever since. 
There is good reason to doubt whether this would ever 
have come about but for the heroic energy of Miss Ann 
Pamela Cunningham of South Carolina, who, though 
a confirmed invalid, devised and executed a plan which 
saved the estate from being sold to a professional 
showman. 

Just as In Alexandria we found ourselves In touch 
with a George Washington who was a ilesh-and-blood 
Virginian as distinguished from the colorless paragon 
of the standard histories, so at Mount Vernon we meet 
the same Washington in his character of husband, 
farmer, and host. Even here, however, we are not 
wholly beyond the penumbra of fiction ; for only five 

[ 245 ] 



Walks About Washington 

miles away Is the town of Pohick, once the parish seat 
of Parson Weems, the inventor of the cherry-tree 
myth on which my generation were industriously fed. 
Although, of course, no one still living in the region can 
remember Washington, there are not a few who are 
familiar with the details of his daily life, handed down 
in their families from ancestors who did remember 
him. These make him out a very human country 
gentleman, who loved to ride, to shoot, to fence, and 
to wrestle ; who mixed business with pleasure in an 
occasional horse-race or real estate speculation ; who 
disbelieved in slavery, and was recognized by his 
own two hundred bondmen as a kind master, yet was 
noted for getting more work out of a negro than any 
other slaveholder in Virginia, and for not hesitating 
to administer corporal punishment to one who de- 
served it. 

We learn from these sources that he was "as straight 
as an Indian, and as free in his walk"; that he was 
what the ladies of that day, in spite of some marks 
left by the smallpox, styled "a pretty man" ; that his 
weight of two hundred and ten pounds was all bone 
and muscle ; and that he stood six feet and two inches 
tall in his shoes, which ranged in size from Number 
eleven to Number thirteen. His hands seem to have 
been his only physical deformity ; they were so large 

[246] 



The Region ' Rou?id About 

as to attract attention and required gloves made 
expressly for them, three sizes larger than ordinary. 
His eyes are variously described as "blue," as "of a 
bluish cast and very lively," as "a cold, light gray," 
and as " so gray that they looked almost white." These 
alternatives may be reconciled, perhaps, by Gilbert 
Stuart's recollection that his eyes were "a light grayish 
blue, deep sunken in their sockets, giving the expres- 
sion of gravity of thought." His hair was originally 
dark brown and fairly thick ; his face was long, his 
nose prominent, his mouth large, and his chin firm. 
He suffered a good deal with toothache, particularly 
after his military service, and, as the rural remedy was 
the simplest known, he passed his last years almost 
toothless. This drove at least one portrait-painter 
into padding the front of his mouth with cotton wool, 
to make his lips look more natural than they did when 
drawn over the ill-fitting artificial teeth which he 
inserted for state occasions. 

The great man lived well, his principal meal being 
a three o'clock dinner, which he washed down with 
five glasses of Madeira, taken with dessert. This 
allowance he gradually increased toward the close of 
his life till it reached two bottles. In sending away 
for sale a slave whom, though troublesome, he guar- 
anteed as "exceedingly healthy, strong and good at 

[247] 



Walks About Washington 

the hoe," he expressed his willingness to take in part 
payment "a hogshead of the best rum" and an indefi- 
nite quantity of "good old spirits." In our gout- 
fearing era, these data have the ring of immoderate 
indulgence, but measured by the standards of the 
eighteenth century they were temperate enough. It 
must be said for the General, also, that he was chari- 
table in his judgment of the weaknesses of others, as 
shown by his contract with an overseer, to whom he 
conceded the privilege of getting drunk for a week 
once a year ; and his campaign expenses for election 
to the Virginia legislature embraced a hogshead and a 
barrel of punch, thirty-five gallons of wine, and forty- 
three gallons of strong cider. 

It makes us feel a little nearer to the Father of our 
Country to learn that he was not immune to the influ- 
ence of bright eyes and dainty toilets ; that he was in 
love, or fancied he was, with several different damsels 
at as many different times ; and that his self-surren- 
der occasionally declared itself in amatory verse too 
dreadful for belief. His most serious infatuation 
seems to have been with a Miss Cary, whom he courted 
fervently, only to be dismissed by her father with the 
sordid reminder: "My daughter, sir, has been accus- 
tomed to ride in her own coach!" As this was a 
knock-down argument for a stripling surveyor who 

[248] 



Fonfs Thralrc, thr Old Front 







-^ *-->_ 



(.f-^l 



The Region 'Round About 

was just struggling to raise his professional terms 
to twenty-five dollars a day when employed, he went 
his way, but sought consolation in winning Martha 
Custis, who resembled Miss Cary almost as a twin 
sister. 

Of Mary Washington, mother of George, we get 
glimpses in the familiar chat of the vicinage. She 
appears as a rather difficult person, who tried the 
methodical soul of her son by her thriftless habits and 
her incessant complaints of being out of money. For 
years he did his utmost to induce her to rent her plan- 
tation further down the State, hire out her slaves, and 
live on her fixed income thus obtained, but to no pur- 
pose. Yet after he had become so famous that he 
was obliged to entertain at Mount Vernon all the 
traveling celebrities of two hemispheres, she suddenly 
took it into her head that she would like to come and 
live with him. In spite of his filial piety, candor 
compelled him to show her the impracticability of her 
proposal ; and, though he tried to soften her disap- 
pointment by sending her the last seventy-five dollars 
in his purse, she seems to have continued dissatisfied. 

George was not stingy. On the contrary, on each 
of three plantations which he farmed he kept one crib 
of corn always set apart for free distribution among 
the poor, and never let this fail, even if he had to rob 

[ 249] 



Walks About Washington 

his own table supply or to buy corn at a dollar a bushel 
to make up a deficit. He was not a rich man, but for 
sentimental reasons held on to Mount Vernon after 
it had ceased to be profitable property. At his death, 
he was worth only about seventy-five thousand dol- 
lars in his own right, and, had he lived ten years 
longer at the same rate, he would have died a bankrupt. 
It was his wife's better investments that kept up the 
expenses of their home. 

As we go over the old mansion, we are shown the 
various rooms associated with Washington's activities, 
and that in which his death occurred. Notwith- 
standing his sturdy muscular development, his throat 
and chest were always weak spots ; and in 1 799, after 
a soaking and chill from a ride through a December 
storm, he went to bed with a cold which left him 
unable to swallow. Soon he realized that the end 
was not far ofi". It was characteristic of the man that 
he should then discharge the doctors from further use- 
less ministrations, give such directions about his burial 
as he deemed important, and calmly proceed to watch 
the waning of his own pulse. After a little the hand 
that held his wrist relaxed and dropped upon the cover- 
let, and the friends gathered in the chamber knew that 
all was over. 

On the Maryland side of the Potomac, the suburb 

[250] 



The Region ^ Rotmd About 

most convenient of access is Georgetown. In fact, it 
long ago ceased to be strictly a suburb, by incorpora- 
tion with the city of Washington, from which it 
was separated only by Rock Creek, a narrow tributary 
of the Potomac. Officially, it is now West Washing- 
ton, and its streets have been renamed and renum- 
bered so as to conform as nearly as practicable to the 
system in use in the capital. All the same, Georgetown 
has never lost its identity. It had a life of its own be- 
fore Washington was thought of ; and within my 
recollection the old society of Georgetown used to look 
askance at the "new people" with whom Washington 
was filling up. It is still sprinkled with hoary houses 
set in quaint ancestral gardens, though modernism 
has touched the place at so many points that we can 
get a glimpse of these survivals sometimes only through 
deep vistas lined with the red brick side-walls of ur- 
ban blocks. The most attractive of the old mansions, 
and the best preserved, is the Tudor house, built by 
Doctor William Thornton about 1810. It is a good 
specimen from the Georgian epoch in architecture, 
standing fitly in the midst of a great square of lawn, 
with shade trees and box hedges to correspond ; and 
one of its traditions is that pretty little Nellie Custis 
went there to her first ball, though — but I leave others 
to struggle with the problem of conflicting dates. One 

[251I 



Walks About Washington 

thing we do know, that the place has always been in 
the possession of kinsfolk of the Mount Vernon family. 

Many amusing stories are told of Georgetown's 
early days, when the Scotch element were so strong in 
its population that a man could not be appointed to 
the office of flour inspector without subscribing to a 
test oath declaring his disbelief in the doctrine of 
"transsubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord's 
supper"; when the city fathers sought to save the 
expense of employing a surveyor to calculate the width 
of the Potomac at a point where a bridge was to be 
built, by ordering out all good citizens to pull at the 
opposite ends of a measuring-rope ; and when the big 
triangle which was pounded as an alarm of fire fell 
from the belfry in which it hung, and fire-alarms were 
sounded thereafter by blowing a fish-horn through the 
streets. But none of these tales will have an interest 
for most visitors equal to the local version of the origin 
of the "Star-Spangled Banner." For Georgetown 
was Francis Scott Key's old home. 

As the story goes, part of the British forces which 
marched upon Washington in the summer of 1814 
passed through Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on a 
day when Doctor William Beanes, a prominent 
physician, was entertaining several friends at dinner. 
As the gentlemen talked, they grew more and more 

[ 252] 



The Region 'Round About 

indignant against the invaders, and, news being 
brought to them at table that a few red-coated strag- 
glers were still in town committing depredations 
after the main body of their comrades had passed 
on, some one suggested that the party go out and 
arrest these men as disturbers of the peace. This 
was done, but to little effect ; for as soon as the strag- 
glers got away, they hastened to catch up with the 
army and lodge a complaint with their officers, who 
at once sent back a squad of soldiers to arrest the 
arresters. Three of the dining party, including 
Beanes, were carried off to Admiral Cockburn's flag- 
ship, which was lying in the Patuxent River. Cock- 
burn, after administering a disciplinary lecture to 
the trio, dismissed the others but took Beanes as a 
prisoner on his ship to Baltimore. 

Key, who was Beanes's nephew, hastened to Balti- 
more as soon as he heard of the doctor's plight, and 
under a flag of truce went aboard the vessel to inter- 
cede with Cockburn for his uncle's release. His plea 
was vain ; and Cockburn would not even let him 
go ashore again till after the bombardment of Fort 
McHenry. When Key returned to Georgetown, he 
related his adventures at the next meeting of the 
local glee-club, and his fellow members urged him 
to put his narrative into verse. He read his produc- 

[ 253 ] 



Walks About Washington 

tion at a later meeting, and the club introduced it 
to the public, who adopted it as the national anthem. 

Among the noted names associated with George- 
town, outside of political life, may be mentioned 
those of Joel Benton, the poet and essayist, who 
bought a farm on the Washington side of Rock Creek, 
since famous as the Kalorama estate ; Robert Fulton, 
the pioneer in steam navigation, who made some of 
his early experiments with water-craft and submarine 
explosives on the small streams of the neighborhood ; 
George Peabody, financier and philanthropist, who 
came as a poor boy from Massachusetts and worked 
as a clerk in a store in Bridge Street ; William W. 
Corcoran, whose later career somewhat resembled 
Peabody's, and whose real start In life dated from the 
failure of a little shop he kept In the heart of the 
town ; and, last but not least, a youthful belle whose 
romance demands a paragraph or two of Its own. 

Baron Bodlsco, Russian Minister to the United 
States during the Van Buren administration, lived, 
as did most of the foreign envoys of that time. In 
Georgetown. He was a bachelor, well on toward 
sixty years of age, uncompromisingly ugly, with a 
face covered with wrinkles, and a bald head which he 
tried to conceal under a somewhat obtrusive wig. 
He had for visitors one winter two young nephews, 

[254] 



The Region 'Round About 

for whom he gave a dancing party at the legation, 
inviting all the socially eligible boys and girls in town. 
By some accident, one of his invitations miscarried 
and failed to reach Harriet Beall Williams, a most 
attractive and popular schoolgirl of sixteen. He 
hastened to repair his error as soon as he discovered 
it, and on the evening of the party hunted her up to 
make his apologies in person. It was a case of love 
at first sight. After that he contrived to meet her 
occasionally on her way to or from school, and ere 
long he became an avowed suitor for her hand. The 
courtship, though not displeasing to the girl, was 
for some time discouraged by her family. Finding 
her resolved to accept her elderly lover, however, 
they withdrew their active opposition, and Beauty 
and the Beast, as they were commonly called, were 
married in June. 

The Baron, who had excellent taste in everything 
except his own make-up, superintended all the de- 
tails of the affair, even to the costumes of the bridal 
party. The bridesmaids were schoolmates of Miss 
Williams, one being Jessie Benton, then aged four- 
teen, who afterward became the wife of General 
John C. Fremont. The groomsmen were generally 
contemporaries of the groom, so that the note of 
age disparity was uniform throughout. President 

[255] 



Walks About Washington 

Van Buren and Henry Clay were conspicuous among 
the guests. At the first opportunity, the Baron 
took his bride to Russia and presented her at court, 
where she electrified the assembled nobility by shak- 
ing the Czar's hand in cordial American fashion. 
It delighted the Czar, however, which was more to 
the point ; and, although she did many unusual 
things, like declining the Czarina's invitation to a 
Sunday function because she had been brought up 
to "keep the Sabbath," she became a great favorite 
in the inner imperial circle, and loved to dwell on her 
foreign experiences after she came back to Georgetown 
to live. The Bodisco house is still pointed out to 
strangers. 

Not all the historic associations of Georgetown and 
its neighborhood have been so peaceful. For a few 
miles out of town the river's edge is dotted with se- 
questered nooks to which hot-brained gentlemen could 
retire on occasion, to wipe out their grievances in one 
another's blood. The Little Falls bridge afforded 
such a retreat to Henry Clay and John Randolph 
after Randolph's speech declaring that the "alphabet 
that writes the name of Thersites, of blackguard, of 
squalidity, refuses her letters for" Clay. The com- 
batants took the precaution to cross the bridge far 
enough to avoid the jurisdiction of the District au- 

[256] 



The Region 'Round About 

thorities. Clay's first shot cut Randolph's coat near 
the hip, Randolph's did nothing. At the second word, 
Clay's bullet went wild, and Randolph deliberately 
sent his into the air, remarking: "I do not fire at 
you, Mr. Clay!" At the same time he advanced 
with hand outstretched. Clay meeting him halfway. 
Randolph, as they were leaving the field, pointed to 
the hole made by Clay's first bullet, saying jocosely : 
"You owe me a coat, Mr. Clay." "I am glad, sir," 
answered Clay, "that the debt is no greater." 

The subject of duels calls to mind another suburb, 
to wit, Bladensburg, Maryland, where the defenders 
of Washington made their brief and ineffectual stand 
against the invading British in 1814. Here, for 
sixty years, in a green little dell about a mile out of 
town, all sorts of personal and political feuds were 
settled with deadly weapons. The most celebrated 
of these meetings was that of March 22, 1820, be- 
tween two Commodores of the American navy, 
Stephen Decatur and James Barron. Like most 
duels, it was more the work of mischief-makers than 
of the principals themselves. 

Decatur was at the height of his fame for achieve- 
ments in the War of 1812 and against the Barbary 
pirates ; he was a fine marksman with the pistol, 
and had had several earlier experiences on the duel- 

[ 257] 



Walks About Washington 

ing-field. Barron, on the other hand, was under a 
cloud for some professional mistakes ; he was six 
years Decatur's senior, had no taste for dueling, 
and was near-sighted. Down to the last, Barron 
was plainly disposed to accept any reasonable con- 
cession and call the affair off; but Decatur was in 
high spirits and full of confidence. 

Two shots rang out simultaneously, and both men 
fell. Decatur, who was at first supposed to be dead, 
presently showed signs of returning animation and 
was lifted to his feet, only to stagger a few paces 
toward his antagonist and fall again. As the two 
men lay side by side, Barron turned his face to say 
to Decatur that he hoped, when they met in another 
world, they would be better friends than in this. 
Decatur responded that he had never been Barron's 
enemy, and, though he cherished no animosity to 
Barron for killing him, he found it harder to forgive 
the men who had goaded them into this quarrel. 
Both combatants were carried back to Washington, 
where Barron slowly recovered from his wound ; but 
Decatur, after a day of intense suffering, died in the 
house which still bears his name, at the corner of 
Jackson Place and H Street. 

So habitually was this one ravine chosen for the 
settlement of affairs of honor that when two Rep re- 

[258] 



The Regio?i 'Round About 

sentatives, Jonathan Cilley of Maine and William J. 
Graves of Kentucky, decided in 1838 to end a dis- 
pute with rifles, they outwitted pursuit by choosing 
for their fight the eastern end of the Anacostia bridge 
on the high-road to Marlboro, Maryland ; and a 
posse who started out to stop them went to the ac- 
customed ground only to find it empty. This duel 
had naught of the dramatic quality of that between 
Decatur and Barron, but its effect on the public 
mind proved more far-reaching. Cilley was a young 
man of brilliant promise, highly respected as well as 
popular, with a wife and three little children. The 
quarrel was forced upon him because, in the interest 
of the proper dignity of Congress, he objected to a 
proposed investigation by the House of some vague 
and irresponsible insinuations made in a recent news- 
paper letter against sundry members who were not 
named or otherwise identified. Graves insisted that 
this speech was an insult to the author of the article, 
whose championship he gratuitously undertook. 

The first two shots were thrown away on both 
sides. At the third fire, Cilley fell upon his face, 
his adversary's bullet having killed him instantly. 
When the news of his death spread through Wash- 
ington, indignation against Graves rose to fever heat, 
and his public career ended with that hour. The 

[259 ] 



Walks About U^ashington 

wantonness of such a sacrifice of a useful life, where 
the writer who figured as the cause of the quarrel 
did not even take a part in it, gave special point to 
the condemnation of the false standard of honor set 
up by the "code," The funeral services for Cilley 
at the Capitol were attended by the President and 
Cabinet, in testimony to the high esteem in which 
he had universally been held ; while the Supreme 
Court declined its invitation in a body, as the most 
emphatic means of expressing its abhorrence of gloss- 
ing murder with a thin coat of etiquette. Ministers, 
not only in Washington but in all the more highly 
civilized parts of the country, denounced dueling 
from the pulpit, newspapers published editorials 
and associations adopted resolutions against it, addi- 
tional legislation for the abolition of the practice 
was introduced in various legislatures, and Congress 
passed an act to punish, with a term in the peniten- 
tiary, the sending or acceptance of a challenge in the 
District of Columbia. 



260 ] 



Stage Entrance through which Booth Escaped 



CHAPTER X 
MONUMENTS AND MEMORIES 

AMONG the projects in the minds of the fou;;iders 
of the federal city was a monument to celebrate 
the success of the American Revolution. George 
Washington personally selected the site for it, due 
south of the center of the President's House. Mean- 
while the Continental Congress had recommended 
the erection of an equestrian statue of General Wash- 
ington, and, immediately after his death, the Con- 
gress then in session resolved to rear a monument 
under which his body should be entombed. But, 
though resolutions were cheap, monuments were 
costly, and the project gradually faded out of mind 
till revived in 1816 by a member of Congress from 
South Carolina. Still nothing happened, till another 
generation devised a plan for raising the money by 
popular subscription without waiting longer for a 
Government appropriation. The Washington Monu- 
ment Society was organized with a membership fee 
of one dollar, so as to give every American oppor- 

[261] 



Walks About Washington 

tunity to subscribe. By 1848 a sufficient fund had 
been collected to spur Congress into presenting a 
site ; and the spot chosen was that marked by Wash- 
ington for the monument to the Revolution, thus 
happily combining his plan with the nation's tribute 
to himself. Tests of the ground showed that, in 
order to get a safe footing, It would be necessary 
to move a little further to the eastward, which ac- 
counts for the present monument's being not quite 
on the short axis of the White House. 

For the original plan of a statue, an obelisk of 
granite and marble was substituted, which by Its 
simplicity of lines, its towering height, and its purity 
of color, should symbolize the exceptional character 
and services of the foremost American. The build- 
ing fund held out pretty well till a politico-religious 
quarrel arose over the acceptance, for incorporation 
in the monument, of a fine block of African marble 
sent by the Pope ; and on Washington's birthday, 
1855, a Know-Nothing mob descended upon the 
headquarters of the Society, seized Its books and 
papers, and took forcible possession of the monu- 
ment. The Know-Nothing party ended Its political 
existence three years later, and the monument went 
back to Its former custodians ; but the riotous dem- 
onstration had checked the orderly progress of the 

[262] 



Monuments and Memories 

work, and, as the Civil War was imminent, the shaft, 
then one hundred seventy-eight feet high, was roofed 
over to await the return of normal conditions. 
It was not till 1876 that, under the patriotic impetus 
of the centenary, Congress was induced to cooperate. 
The work was vigorously pushed from 1880 to 1884; 
and in the spring of 1885, when it had attained a 
height of five hundred fifty-five feet and five 
and five-tenths inches, occurred the formal dedica- 
tion of the Washington National Monument as we 
see it to-day. 

For the benefit of any one whose pleasure in a 
masterpiece is measured with a plummet, it may be 
noted that the Monument falls less than fifty feet 
short of the Tower of Babel ; to him who revels in 
terms of distance, the glistening pile will appeal on 
the ground that it is visible from a crest of the Blue 
Ridge Mountains, more than forty miles away as the 
bee files. But most of its neighbors in Washington 
find it for other reasons an unceasing joy. To us it 
is more truly at the heart of things than even the 
Capitol. It is the hoary sentinel at our water-gate ; 
or, spread the city out like a fan, and the Monument 
is the pivot which holds the frame together. 

The visitor who has seen it once has just begun to 
see it. A smooth-faced obelisk, devoid of ornament, 

[263] 



Walks About Washington 

it would appear the stolidest object in the landscape; 
in truth, it is as versatile as the clouds. Every change 
in your position reveals it in a new phase. Go close 
to it and look up, and its walls seem to rise infinitely 
and dissolve into the atmosphere ; stand on the neigh- 
boring hills, and you are tempted to throw a stone 
over its top ; sail down the Potomac, and the slender 
white shaft is still sending its farewells after you when 
the city has passed out of sight. It plays chameleon 
to the weather. It may be gay one moment and 
grave the next, like the world. Sometimes, in the 
varying lights, it loses its perspective and becomes 
merely a flat blade struck against space ; an hour 
later, every line and seam is marked with the crisp- 
ness of chiseled sculpture. On a fair morning, it is 
radiant under the first beams of the rising sun ; in 
the full of the moon, it is like a thing from another 
world — cold, shimmering, unreal. Often in the 
spring and fall its peak is lost in vapor, and the shaft 
looks as if it were a tall, thin Ossa penetrating the 
home of the gods. Again, with its base wrapped 
in fog and its summit in cloud, it is a symbol of 
human destiny, emerging from one mystery only to 
pass into another. Always the same, yet never twice 
alike, it is to the old Washingtonian a being instinct 
with life, a personality to be known and loved. It 

[ 264 ] 



Monuments and Memories 

has relatively little to tell the passing stranger, but 
many confidences for the friend of years. 

To realize all that it is to us, you must see it on a 
changeable day. Come with me then to the Capitol, 
whence, from an outlook on the western terrace, we 
face a thick and troubled sky. The air is murky. 
Clouds fringed with gray fleece, which have been 
hanging so low as to hide the apex of the Monument, 
are folding back upon themselves in the southern 
heavens, forming a rampart dark and forbidding. 
Against this the obelisk is projected, having caught 
and held one ray of pure sunshine which has found 
an opening and shot through like a searchlight. It 
is plain that an atmospheric battle is at hand. The 
garrulous city seems struck dumb ; the timid trees 
are shivering with apprehension ; the voice of the 
wind is half sob and half warning. The search-ray 
vanishes as the door of the cloud fort is closed and 
the rumbling of the bolts is heard behind it. The 
landscape in the background is blotted from view 
by eddies of yellow dust, as if a myriad of horsemen 
were making a tentative charge. Silent and un- 
moved, the obelisk stands there, a white warrior 
bidding defiance to the forces of sky and earth. As 
the subsiding dust marks the retreat of the cavalry, 
the artillery opens fire. First one masked porthole 

[265] 



Walks About Washington 

and then another belches flame, but the sharp crash 
or dull roar which follows passes quite unnoticed by 
the champion. Then comes the rattle of musketry, 
as a sheet of hail sweeps across the field. 

We are not watching a combat, only an assault, 
for these demonstrations call forth no response. On 
the champion — taking everything, giving nothing — • 
the only effect they produce is a change of color from 
snowy white to ashen gray. Even that is but for a 
moment. As the storm of hail melts into a shower 
of limpid raindrops to which the relieved trees open 
their palms, the wind ceases its wailing, and the wall 
of cloud falls apart to let the sun's rays through once 
more. 

The Monument is, of course, only one of many 
memorials to great men in Washington. We have 
heroes and philanthropists, poets and physicians, 
soldiers and men of science, mounted and afoot, 
standing and sitting. We have horses in every pos- 
ture that will hold a rider : Jackson's balanced on 
its hind legs like the toy charger on the nursery man- 
telpiece ; Washington's getting ready to try the 
same trick ; Sheridan's dashing along the line to the 
lilt of Buchanan Read's poem ; Pulaski's, Greene's 
and McPherson's, Hancock's and McClellan's and 
Logan's, walking calmly over the field ; Scott's and 

[266] 



Monuments and Memories 

Sherman's watching the parade. The best equestrian 
statue is that of General George H. Thomas, by 
Quincy Ward, at the junction of Massachusetts 
Avenue with Fourteenth Street. Here we have the 
acme of art in treating such a subject : spirit coupled 
with repose. The horse has been moving, but has 
been checked by the rider to give him a chance to 
look about ; they could go on the next moment if 
need be, or they could stand indefinitely just as they 
are. 

The Scott statue, at Massachusetts Avenue and 
Sixteenth Street, is good if we take it apart and 
examine it piecemeal ; but the massive rider threatens 
to break down his slender-limbed steed, which is, 
by some mischance, of the mare's build and not the 
stallion's. General Sheridan, who used to live within 
a stone's throw of this statue, lay while ill in a bed- 
room commanding a view of it. "I hope," he re- 
marked one day, "that if a grateful country ever 
commemorates me in bronze, it will give me a better 
mount than old Scott's!" It is hard to find any- 
thing new to do with a general officer and a horse 
without putting them into some impossible attitude. 
A sculptor who attempts a reasonable innovation is 
liable to be snubbed for it, as one was not long ago 
when he offered in competition a statue of General 

[267] 



IValks About IVashington 

Grant, dismounted, with his bridle swung over one 
of his arms while he used the other hand to hold his 
field-glass. 

Some of the best-known statues in the city have 
attracted as much attention by their travels as by 
their artistic qualities. One of these is Greenough's 
colossal marble presentment of George Washington, 
which visitors to the Capitol ten years ago will recall 
as standing in the open space facing the main east 
portico. Greenough was in Italy in 1835, when it 
was ordered, and spent eight years on its production. 
It shows Washington seated, nude to the waist, and 
below that draped in a flowing robe. It weighed, 
when finished, twelve tons without a pedestal, and 
required twenty-two yoke of oxen to haul from Flor- 
ence to Genoa. Peasants who saw it on the way 
took it for the image of some mighty saint, and 
dropped upon their knees and crossed themselves as 
it passed. The man-of-war which was waiting for 
it at Genoa had no hatchway large enough to take 
it in, so a merchant vessel had to be chartered for its 
voyage to America. Arrived at the Capitol, where 
it was intended to stand in the center of the rotunda, 
it could not be squeezed through the doors, and the 
masonry had to be cut away. Then it was discovered 
that it was causing the floor to settle, and a lot of 

[268] 



Monuments and Memories 

shoring had to be done in the crypt underneath. 
Finally, as it was not suited to its place, the masonry 
around the doorway was ripped out again, and the 
statue w^as set up in the plaza, where it remained 
till 1908, the sport of rains and frosts and souvenir- 
maniacs, when it took what every one hopes will be 
its last journey — to the National Museum. The 
original purpose of Congress was to have a "pedes- 
trian statue" costing, all told, five thousand dollars. 
What has eventuated is Washington's head set on a 
torso of Jupiter Tonans, costing, with all its traveling 
expenses, more than fifty thousand dollars. 

Another peregrinating statue is that of Thomas 
Jefferson, which stands to-day against the east wall 
of the rotunda. In 1833 it occupied the center of 
this room. When Greenough's Washington was 
brought in, Jefi"erson was removed to the Library of 
Congress, which was then housed in the rooms of the 
west front of the Capitol. In 1850 it was carried 
up to the White House and planted in the middle 
of the north garden. It held that site for twenty-four 
years and then came back to the rotunda, from which 
there is no reason to think it will be moved again. 

The only parallel to these instances of frequent 
shifts in the local art world is the case of a painting 
entitled "Love and Life," presented by the English 

[ 269 ] 



JValks About W^ashington 

artist, George F. Watts, to our Government. Mr. 
Cleveland, who was President at the time, hung it 
in the White House, but the prudish comments passed 
upon it by visitors led to its transfer to the Corcoran 
Gallery of Art. In the Roosevelt administration it 
made three trips, first to the White House, then back 
to the Corcoran Gallery, and then to the White House 
again, where it rested till President Taft came in, 
only to be rebanished to the Corcoran Gallery. Presi- 
dent Wilson had it returned to the White House, 
and there it is at the present writing. 

Although there has never been in Washington a 
definite scheme for the location of statues, which 
have been planted, hit or miss, wherever space of- 
fered, accident has arranged a few of them so as to 
form a rather remarkable historical series. Starting 
with the Washington National Monument, in honor 
of the foremost figure in the Revolution and the 
President who set in motion the machinery of the 
embryo republic, we pass directly northward to the 
White House, home of all his successors in the Presi- 
dency and emblematic of the civil government which 
emerged from the War for Independence. A few 
hundred feet further northward stands the statue of 
Andrew Jackson, the hero of the War of 1812, the 
first fought by the United States as a nation. About 

[ 270] 



Monuments and Memories 

a half-mile more to the north we reach the statue of 
Winfield Scott, the general whose capture of Mexico 
City ended the second foreign war in which the nation 
engaged. All that is needed to complete this re- 
markable procession is a memorial arch on Sixteenth 
Street heights, to the soldiers and sailors on both 
sides of the Civil War which cemented the Union 
begun under Washington. 

Strange to say, the city which best knew Lincoln 
and Grant has had, up to this time, no out-of-doors 
statue whatever of Grant and no adequate one of 
Lincoln. In Lincoln Park, about a mile east of the 
Capitol, is the Emancipation statue, and in front 
of the City Hall there is an insignificant standing 
figure of Lincoln, perched on a pillar so high that 
the features can be seen only dimly. A statue of 
Grant will later occupy the central pedestal of a 
group in the little park at the foot of the western 
slope of the Capitol grounds, which it is proposed to 
call Union Square. On either side of Grant, the 
plan originally was to place Sherman and Sheridan ; 
but as the Sherman and Sheridan statues already 
set up elsewhere are so diverse in character, it has 
been questioned whether they would fit into the 
Union Square group. After many suggestions, con- 
troversies, and reports. Congress decided, a year or 

[ 271 ] 



W^alks About JVashiftgton 

two ago, upon a form of memorial for Lincoln, which 
is already under way. It will be a marble temple, 
designed by Henry Bacon, in Potomac Park, with a 
statue of the War President, by Daniel Chester 
French, visible in the recesses of its dignified colonnade. 
Besides the scores of statues and miles of painted 
portraits which keep vivid the memory of great and 
good men who are gone, Washington has many in- 
stitutions and buildings with personal associations 
that fulfil a similar purpose. The Corcoran Gallery 
of Art, for instance, was the gift of the late William 
W. Corcoran, the financier. The national deaf-mute 
college at Kendall Green, on the northeastern edge 
of the city, recalls its original benefactor, Amos Ken- 
dall, who was Postmaster-general under Jackson, as 
well as the work of Doctor Edward M. Gallaudet 
in raising it from its modest beginnings to its present 
eminence. The Pension Ofiice, in which eight in- 
augural balls have been held, takes first rank among 
our public edifices for architectural ugliness. It is 
nevertheless an honor to the memory of Quarter- 
master-general Meigs, who asked the privilege of 
proving, in an era of extravagance, that a suitable 
building could be reared for the money allotted to 
it, and who turned back into the treasury a large 
slice of his appropriation after having paid every 

[272 ] 



Monuments and Memories 

bill. The present Library of Congress is, in a like 
manner, a monument to the late Bernard R. Green, 
whose engineering skill and administrative faculty 
performed a feat corresponding to General Meigs's ; 
it reminds us, also, of Thomas Jefferson, whose pri- 
vate library, purchased after the burning of the Capi- 
tol, formed the nucleus of the present magnificent 
collection. The Soldiers' Home, near the north bound- 
ary of the city, commemorates General Scott's 
success in Mexico, the tribute he exacted there for a 
breach of truce being used in founding this beautiful 
retreat, where veterans of the regular army may pass 
their declining years in comfort. 

Few people, probably, are aware that the Smith- 
sonian Institution, whose fame is as wide as civiliza- 
tion, owes its origin to the rejection of a manuscript 
prepared for publication. James Smithson, an Eng- 
lishman of means, who had been a frequent contrib- 
utor to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal 
Society of London, sent in, a little less than a century 
ago, a paper which the censors refused to print ; and 
its author avenged the affront by altering his will, 
in which he had bequeathed his entire fortune to 
the Society, so as to throw the reversion to the United 
States, a country he had never seen, to be used for 
"an establishment for the increase and diffusion of 

[ 273 ] 



Walks About Washington 

knowledge among men." Congress had a long quibble 
about the disposal of the money, but at last hit upon 
a plan, and since then has turned over much of the 
public scientific research work to be performed 
"under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution." 
The accumulation of trophies of exploration, historical 
relics, and gifts of objects of art and industry from 
foreign potentates, presently overflowed the accom- 
modations of the Institution proper, and a National 
Museum was built to house these treasures. The 
Smithsonian commemorates not only the beneficence 
of Smithson, but the great achievements of its several 
executive heads, like Joseph Henry's in electromag- 
netism, Spencer F. Baird's in the culture of fish as a 
source of food-supply, and Samuel P. Langley's in 
aerial navigation and the standardization of time. 

The old City Hall, better known now as the District 
Court House, will be remembered as the place where 
the first President Harrison probably caught the 
cold which resulted in his death. It has a tragic 
association with another President, also, for in one 
of its court-rooms was conducted the trial of Guiteau 
for assassinating James A. Garfield. This trial ex- 
cited vigorous comment throughout the country by 
what seemed to many critics an unwarrantable lati- 
tude allowed the defendant for self-exploitation. 

[ 274] 



Rendezvous of the Linmln Conspirators 



Monuments and Memories 

Judge Walter T. Cox, who presided, was one of the 
ablest and most conscientious jurists who ever sat 
on the Supreme bench of the District. From per- 
sonal attendance on the trial, I feel sure that the 
course pursued by him was the only one which could 
have given the jury a sure ground for dooming the 
assassin to death ; and it was doubtless a realization 
of that fact which held in check the mob spirit that 
began to show itself at one stage and threatened 
to save the Government the trouble of putting up a 
gallows. The popular rancor against Guiteau was 
so strong that in order to get him safely into the 
Court House from the "black Maria" which brought 
him from the jail every morning, and to reverse the 
operation at the close of every day's session, the 
vehicle was backed up within about twenty feet of 
one of the basement doors, and a double file of police, 
standing shoulder to shoulder with clubs drawn, 
made a narrow little lane through which he was rushed 
at a quickstep, his face blanched with terror, and 
his furtive eyes fixed on the earth. 

Another historical incident is associated with the 
old building, to which many attribute the final resolve 
of President Lincoln to issue his Emancipation Proc- 
lamation. I refer to the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia. A bill to this end, introduced 

[ 275 ] 



Walks About Washington 

by Henry Wilson in December, 1861, was hotly de- 
bated in Congress but finally passed, and was signed 
on April 16, 1862. Only loyal owners were to be 
paid for their slaves, and every applicant for com- 
pensation had to take an iron-clad oath of allegiance 
to the Government. The whole business was handled 
by a board of three commissioners, who employed 
for their assistance an experienced slave-dealer im- 
ported from Baltimore. They met in one of the 
court-rooms, and the dealer put the negroes through 
their paces just as he had been accustomed to in the 
heyday of his trade, making them dance to show their 
suppleness and bite various tough substances as a 
test of the soundness of their teeth. Many of the 
black men and women came into the room singing 
hosannas to glorify the dawn of freedom. The high- 
est appraisement of any slave was seven hundred and 
eighty-eight dollars for a good blacksmith ; the low- 
est was ten dollars and ninety-five cents for a baby. 
These were about half the prices which would have 
been brought but for the fact that only one million 
dollars was appropriated, whereas the total estimated 
value of the slaves paid for was nearer two million, 
and all payments had to be scaled accordingly. 

A remarkable feature of this episode was the dis- 
covery of how many slaveholders there were who 

[276] 



Monuments and Memories 

were not white people. Now and then in the past, 
when for some special reason a negro had been freed, 
he would save his earnings till he had accumulated 
enough to buy his wife and children, who still re- 
mained in bondage to him till he saw fit to manumit 
them. One case which attracted wide attention was 
that of a woman who had bought her husband, a 
graceless scamp who proceeded to celebrate his good 
fortune by becoming an incorrigible drunkard. This 
had so outraged the feelings of his wife that she had 
finally sold him to a dealer who was picking up a 
boatload of cheap slaves to carry south. From that 
hour she had lost sight of him ; but she haunted the 
commissioners' sessions from day to day in the hope 
that the Government, now that it was going into the 
slave-buying business, might give her a little addition to 
the bargain price at which she had sold the old man. 

Judiciary Square, in which the Court House and 
the Pension Office stand, was, when Chief Justice 
Taney lived in Indiana Avenue, a neighborhood 
of consequence. Several of the older buildings there- 
about exhale a flavor of fifty or sixty years ago, and 
tradition connects them with such personages as 
Rufus Choate, Caleb Cushing, Thomas H. Benton, 
Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Fremont, and John A. 
Dix. 

■[ 277 ] 



Walks About Washington 

Opposite the east park of the Capitol, as we have 
already seen, stands the Old Capitol, a building with 
a variegated history. It was erected for the accom- 
modation of Congress after the burning of the Capi- 
tol by the British. In it Henry Clay passed some 
years of his Speakership, and till very lately there 
was a scar on the wall of one of the rooms which was 
said to have been made by his desk. Under its roof 
the first Senators from Indiana, Illinois, and Missis- 
sippi took their seats. In front of it. President Monroe 
was inaugurated. After Congress left it to return 
to the restored Capitol, it was rented for a boarding- 
house, patronized chiefly by Senators and Represen- 
tatives. Here John C. Calhoun lived for some time, 
and here he died. In one of the rooms, Persico, 
the Italian sculptor, worked out the model of his 
"Discoverer." In another, Ann Royall edited her 
Huntress. 

After the Civil War broke out, the Old Capitol was 
turned into a jail for the confinement of military of- 
fenders who were awaiting trial by court-martial, 
and for Confederate spies and other persons accused 
of unlawfully giving aid and comfort to the enemy. 
Belle Boyd, who was locked up there for a while, has 
left us her impressions of the place as "a vast brick 
building, like all prisons, somber, chilling, and re- 

[278] 



Mo?2time?2ts and Memories 

pulsive." She describes William P. Wood, who was 
superintendent of the prison, as "having a humane 
heart beneath a rough exterior." Every Sunday he 
used to provide facilities for religious worship to his 
compulsory guests, announcing the hours and forms 
in characteristic fashion: "All you who want to hear 
the word of God preached according to Jeff Davis, 
go down into the yard ; and all of you who want to 
hear it preached according to Abe Lincoln, go into 
No. i6." In the jail yard Henry Wirz, who had been 
the keeper of the Confederate military prison at 
Andersonville, Georgia, where so many Union soldiers 
died of starvation and disease, was hanged for murder. 
At the close of the war the building was divided into 
a block of dwellings, of which the southernmost was 
long the home of the late Justice Field of the Supreme 
Court. The Justice used to enjoy telling his visitors 
about the distinguished men from the South who, 
after dining at his table, had roamed over the 
premises and located their one-time places of confine- 
ment. 

The oldest house of worship in Washington is St. 
Paul's, a spireless Protestant Episcopal church not 
far from the Soldiers' Home. It stands well toward 
the rear of the Rock Creek Cemetery, which also 
contains the world-famous bronze by St. Gaudens, 

[ 279 ] 



W^alks About VFashington 

in the Adams lot. This is a seated female figure, 
in flowing classic drapery, to which no one has ven- 
tured to attach a permanent title, though it has been 
variously known as "Grief" and "The Peace of God." 
St. Paul's goes back to the colonial era and was built 
of brick imported from England. A younger church, 
nevertheless numbered among the oldest relics of its 
class within the city proper, is St. John's, at the cor- 
ner of Sixteenth and H streets. It was designed by 
Latrobe about the time he undertook the restoration 
of the Capitol and was consecrated in 1816. It has 
long been called "the President's church" because 
so many tenants of the White House, just across 
Lafayette Square, have worshiped in it. 

Madison and Monroe were the first, and the vestry 
soon set apart one pew to be preserved always for the 
free use of the reigning Presidential family. John 
Quincy Adams was a Unitarian, but came to the after- 
noon services ; and Jackson, though a Methodist, 
was frequently to be seen there. Van Buren was a 
constant attendant both as Vice-president and as 
President. William Henry Harrison, for the month 
he lived in Washington, came regularly, regardless 
of the weather or his state of health ; and he was to 
have been confirmed the very week he died. Tyler 
was a member of the congregation. Polk had other 

[280] 



Mo?iuments and Memo?'ies 

affiliations, but Taylor, Fillmore, and Buchanan used 
the President's pew. Then came a break in the line 
till Arthur entered the White House ; and his retire- 
ment appears to have been followed by another lapse 
in the succession till Mrs. Roosevelt revived it. Her 
husband used to accompany her from time to time, 
though he retained his active connection with the 
Reformed (Dutch) communion. Since the Roose- 
velts, the line has been broken again. John Quincy 
Adams became so fond of St. John's that, when he 
returned to Washington as a Representative, he re- 
newed his Sunday visits. He paid close attention 
to the preliminary service but seemed to sleep through 
the sermon, though he was usually able to repeat 
the next day, with considerable accuracy, the main 
things the minister had said. 

This whole neighborhood bristles with memories 
of great people. The old Tayloe mansion was styled, 
in its later years, "the Cream-white House," partly 
because of its color, and partly in jocose reference 
to its occupancy by two or three Vice-presidents. 
The house on the corner north of it, now owned by 
the Cosmos Club, was the home of Dolly Madison 
in her widowhood. After her death it passed into 
the hands of Charles Wilkes, the gallant naval officer 
who was for many years the unrecognized discoverer 

[281] 



Walks About Jf^ashington 

of the Antarctic continent, and who, in the early 
days of the Civil War, forcibly took two of his late 
Washington neighbors, Messrs. Mason and Slidell, 
off the British steamer Trent, which was conveying 
them to Europe on a diplomatic mission for the Con- 
federate Government. South of the Tayloe house is 
the Belasco Theater, on the site of the old-fashioned 
red brick building in which occurred the attempted 
assassination of Secretary Seward and where James 
G, Blaine passed the last years of his life. On H 
Street, about a block to the eastward, General McClel- 
lan made his headquarters in the intervals between 
his commands of the Army of the Potomac ; while 
in a near cluster are former homes of Commodore 
Decatur, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Daniel 
Webster, Montgomery Blair, Gideon Welles, George 
Bancroft, and John Hay, as well as the house where 
the Ashburton treaty was negotiated and where 
Owen Meredith wrote his " Lucile." Edward Everett, 
Jefferson Davis, and Tobias Lear lived, at various 
times, a short distance away. 

One of my favorite excursions about the city with 
friends who revere the memory of the War President 
is what I call my "Lincoln pilgrimage." We start 
at the White House, turn eastward and take F Street 
to Tenth, and then southward a half-square. This 

[ 282 ] 



Monuments and Memories 

brings us in front of the building which once was 
Ford's Theater, by the route taken by Lincohi on the 
evening of Good Friday, 1865. Here are the arches 
which once opened into the theater lobby but are 
now used for ground-floor windows ; through one of 
them he passed on his way to his box. Directly across 
the street is the house to which he was carried to 
die. In it is preserved the Oldroyd collection of 
Lincoln relics, a really remarkable array. After 
inspecting it, we return to F Street and go eastward 
again to about the middle of the block, where an alley 
emerges from a lower level south of us. Down into 
this we dive, and, making a sharp right-angle turn, 
find ourselves at the old stage-door of the theater, 
beside which Booth left his horse, and through which 
he made his dash for liberty after his mad deed. 

Back again up the alley we climb, through F Street 
to Ninth, through Ninth to H, and eastward on H 
Street to Number 604, the house of Mrs. Surratt, 
the rendezvous of the conspirators and the place 
where some of them were captured. It looks to-day 
very much as it did on the night of the assassination. 
Retracing our steps to Seventh Street, we board a 
southbound car, which carries us to the gate of the 
reservation now occupied by the Washington Bar- 
racks and the Army War College. Here, within a 

[283] 



Walks About Washington 

few hundred feet of the entrance, used to stand the 
military prison where the conspirators were confined, 
and in the yard of which they paid the last penalty 
for their crime. 

And here, dear reader, we come to the end of our 
present walks and talks about Washington. As I 
warned you at the outset, I have treated our wan- 
derings as a pleasure-jaunt rather than as a medium 
of solid instruction. When you find yourself thirst- 
ing, for the severely practical, you can come back 
and make the round again, if you choose, in a sight- 
seeing car, and the megaphone-man will point out 
to you twice as many objects of interest and give 
you three times as much information about them — 
accurate or otherwise. He will take pains to show 
you all the Government buildings and the hotels, 
the foreign legations and the theaters, the million- 
aires' houses, and parks and circles and statuary 
which I have dismissed with a line or left unmen- 
tioned. He will tell you how many tons every bronze 
weighs, how long every edifice took in building, and 
how large a fortune every Senator amassed before 
crowning his career with a tour of public service. I 
could have told you these things, too, but, rather 
than force too fast a gait upon you, I have left them 

[ 284 ] 



Monuments and Memories 

for the megaphone-man and taken for my task some 
odds and ends he could not take for his. I should 
have liked to tell you how the Government swept all 
the electric wires out of the sky and hid them under- 
ground ; how it drained the marshes on the city's 
western edge, cleared the channels of the Potomac, 
and built out of the dredgings a big pleasure-ground ; 
and how it got rid of the annual inundations, in one 
of which, just about a generation ago, I crossed the 
busiest part of Pennsylvania Avenue in a rowboat. 

These improvements, and others in the same cate- 
gory, have been paralleled by the changes in the 
architecture of the city, at the expense of tearing 
down something old to make room for whatever new 
was to go up. Touched by the spirit of progress, 
the face of Washington is rapidly becoming as desti- 
tute of landmarks as its origin is destitute of myths, 
and the artist who visits it in quest of the antique 
has a hunt before him. Nevertheless, it has not 
lost its picturesque appeal for the pencil guided by 
imagination, or its colorful legends for the memory 
seeking relief from more serious things. 

Hence this book. 



[285] 



INDEX 



Adams, Abigail, 9, 115, 119. 

John, 7, 73, no, 119, 150, 156, 

228. 
John Quincy, 20, 58, 65, 96, 

147, 150, 151, 181, 280, 281, 

282. 
Mrs. John Quincy, 151. 
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, 

23, 192, 233. 
Alexandria, Va., 4, 12, 54, 238. 
Allston, Theodosia, 242. 
Anacostia, D.C., 84. 
Anderson, Major Robert, 193. 
Arlington Cemetery, 235. 
Army War College, 17, 283. 
Arthur, Chester A., 224, 281. 

Bagot, Sir George, 138. 

Baird, Spencer F., 274. 

Bancroft, George, 282. 

Barksdale, William, 103. 

Barney, Joshua, 15. 

Barron, James, 257. 

Beanes, Dr. William, 252. 

Belasco Theater, 282. 

Bell, John, 27. 

Bellows, Rev. Dr. Henry W., 198. 

Benton, Joel, 254. 

Thomas H., 277. 
Bladensburg, Md., 15, 135, 257. 
Blaine, James G., 203, 215, 227, 282. 
Blair, Montgomery, 282. 
Bodisco, Baron, 254. 

Baroness, 255. 



Bonaparte, Jerome, 128. 
Booth, John Wilkes, 43. 
Boyd, Belle, 278. 
Braddock, Edward, 239, 243. 
Breckinridge, John C, 27, 30. 

William C. P., 105. 
Brooks, Rt. Rev. Phillips, 243. 

Preston, 68, 189. 
Buchanan, James, 30, 190, 196, 281. 
Buchignani, Mrs. (See Mrs. John 

H. Eaton.) 
Bulfinch, Charles, 56, 57, 60. 
Bull Run, Battle of, 37, 236. 
Burlingame, Anson, 190. 
Burns, David, 4. 
Burr, Aaron, 93, 242. 

Calhoun, John C, 164, 278. 

Capitol, 6, ic, 45, 54, 136. 

Cary, Mary, 2^(8. 

Chase, Salmon P., 202. 

Choate, Rufus, 277. 

Cilley, Jonathan, 259. 

City Hall, 173, 271, 274, 277. 

Civil War, 25, 26, 194, 278. 

Clay, Henry, 65, 68, 140, 152, 

164, 172, 181, 187, 256, 278, 

282. 
Cleveland, Frances Folsom, 226, 

229. 
Grover, 112, 225, 229, 232. 
Clinton, George, 93. 
Cobb, Howell, 191. 
Cockburn, Sir George, 15, 253. 



[287] 



Index 



Congress, 8, 19, 54, 82, 85, 138. 
(See also Senate and House 
OF Representatives.) 
Conkling, Roscoe, 203, 215. 
Corcoran, William W., 254. 
Corcoran Gallery of Art, 270, 272. 
Cosmos Club, 281. 
Court House. (See City Hall.) 
Covode, John, 102. 
Cox, Judge Walter T., 275. 
Coxey's Army, 80. 
Craig, Burton F., 102. 
Crawford, Thomas, 57. 
Crisp, Charles F., 104. 
Cunningham, Ann Pamela, 245. 
Cushing, Caleb, 214, 277. 
Custis, George, 133, 235. 
Nellie, 251. 

Davis, Harriet Riddle, 209. 

JefFerson, 29, 57, 72, 282. 
Decatur, Stephen, 257, 282. 
Dix, John A., 29, 277. 
Donelson, Andrew J., 162. 

Mary Emily, 162. 
Douglas, Stephen A., 27, 33, 196, 

277. 
Douglass, Frederick, 221. 
Dreams, Strange, of Lincoln, 208. 
Dueling, Condemnation of, 260. 



Early, Jubal A., 41. 
Eaton, John H., 159, 169. 

Mrs. John H., 159, 168, 179. 
Electoral Commission, 68, 219. 
Ellsworth, Ephraim E., 35, 243. 
Emancipation Proclamation, 200, 

275-_ 
Emancipation Statue, 271. 
Everett, Edward, 282. 

Field, Cyrus W., 190. 

Stephen J., 279. 
Fillmore, Millard, 185, 281. 



Ford's Theater, 43, 209, 283. 
Fort McHenry, Md., 253. 
Fort Myer, Va., 237. 
Foster, Sir Augustus, 76, 127. 
Franklin Square, 119. 
Frelinghuysen, Mrs. Frederick T., 

225. 
Fremont, Jessie Benton, 255. 

John C, 255, 277. 
French, Daniel Chester, 272. 
Fulton, Robert, 254. 

Gallaudet, Dr. Edward M., 272. 
Gardiner, David, 180. 

Julia, 179. 
Garfield, "Grandma," 222. 

James A., 222, 233, 274. 
Georgetown, D.C., 3, 11, 12, 251. 
Grant, Nellie. (See Nellie Grant 
Sartoris.) 

Ulysses S., 43, 44, 45, 205, 212, 
22s, 232, 271. 

Mrs. Ulysses S., 225. 
Graves, William J., 259. 
Greeley, Horace, 203, 213. 
Green, Bernard R., 273. 
Greenough, Horatio, 58, 268. 
Grow, Galusha A., loi. 
Guiteau, Charles J., 223, 274. 



Halford, Elijah W., 228. 
Hamlin, Hannibal, 32. 
Hancock, Winfield S., 223, 266. 
Harrison, Benjamin, 112, 226. 

William Henry, 172, 274, 280. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 188. 
Hay, John, 282. 
Hayes, Lucy Webb, 220. 

Rutherford B., 218. 
Henry, Joseph, 27.^. 
Hoban, James, 116, 231. 
House of Representatives, 10, 56, 
63, 76, 85, 139. (See also 
Congress.) 

[ 288] 



Indt 



ex 



Hoxie, Vinnie Ream, 21 1. 
Humboldt, Baron von, 125. 
Hutchinson Family, 204. 
Huygens, Bangeman, 160, 162. 

Inaugural Balls, 134, 175, 
219. 

Jackson, Andrew, 58, 150, 
232, 266, 270, 280. 
Andrew, Jr., 161. 
Mrs. Andrew, 157, 159. 
Jay, John, 12, 69. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 2, 54, 68, 

121, 231, 269. 
Johnson, Andrew, 44, 211. 
Judiciary Square, 277. 

Kearney, Dennis, 222. 
Keitt, Lawrence M., loi. 
Kendall, Amos, 272. 
Key, Francis Scott, 252. 
Kilbourn, Hallet, 97. 
Kilgore, Constantine Buckley, 
King, William R., 142, 188. 
Kossuth, Louis, 186. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 65. 
Lafayette Park, 5, 118. 
Lamar, Lucius Q. C, 102. 
Lane, Harriet, 193. 
Latrobe, Benjamin H., 56, 280 
Lear, Tobias, 244, 282. 
Lee, Robert E., 42, 235. 
L'Enfant, Pierre Charles, 5, 83, 
Library, Public, 49. 
Library of Congress, 273. 
Liliuokalani, Queen, 221. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 30, 65, 195, 
271, 275, 282. 

Mary Todd, 196, 208. 

"Tad," 43, 201. 

Willie, 201. 
Lind, Jennie, 146. 
Lovejoy, Owen, 102. 



212, 



156, 



III, 



109. 



231. 



23; 



McClellan, George B., 236, 266, 

282. 
McCreary, James B., 106. 
McElroy, Mrs. John, 224. 
McKee, "Baby," 228. 
McKinley, William, Jr., 112, 221, 

230, 232. 
McLean, John, 194. 
Madison, Dolly, 19, 78, 115, 124, 

13s, 144, 281. 
James, 14, 54, 125, 132, 280. 
Mall, 12, 83, 114. 
Marine Band, 77, 124, 178, 225. 
Marshall, John, 65, 164. 
Martineau, Harriet, 161, 163. 
Meigs, Montgomery C, 237, 272. 
Mellanelli, Sidi, 127. 
Meredith, Owen, 282. 
Merry, Anthony, 125. 
Mexican War, 22, 182, 271, 273. 
Mitchill, Dr. Samuel, 127. 
Monroe, Eliza Kortright, 115, 147. 
James, 18, 138, 147, 151, 278, 

280. 
Moore, Thomas, 5, 125. 
Morrissey, Mrs. John, 213. 
Morse, Samuel F. B., 75, 182. 
Mott, Richard T., 102. 
Mount Vernon, Va., 244, 249. 

Negroes, First, in Inaugural 

parade, 208. 
Nilsson, Christine, 224. 

Octagon House, 19, 137. 
O'Ferrall, Charles T., 108. 
Old Capitol, 20, 278. 
O'Neil, " Peggy." (See Mrs. John 
H. Eaton.) 

Paine, Thomas, 129. 

Patterson, Elizabeth, 1 28. (See also 

Jerome Bonaparte.) 
Peabody, George, 254. 



[289] 



Index 



Pension Office, 272, 277. 
Pennsylvania Avenue, 10, 47, 49, 

114,285. 
Persico, Luigi, 58, 278. 
Phillips, Wendell, 214. 
Pierce, Franklin, 186. ;?7 

Mrs. Franklin, 188. 
Pohick, Va., 246. 
Polk, James K., 182. 

Sarah Childress, 182. 
Potter, Rt. Rev. Henry C, 243. 
Presidents, Deaths of, in office, 43, 

176, i8c, 208, 223, 23c. 
Presidents and Congress, 72, 89, 

109. 
Press, Congress and the, 94. 
Prince, Frederick O., 191. 
Princeton, Sloop-of-War, 180. 

Randolph, John, 59, 64, 94, 140, 
256. 
Robert B., 168. 
Ream, Vinnie. (See HoxiE.) 
Reed, Thomas B., 79, 103. 
Religious Exercises in Congress, 77, 

.98. 
Robinson, William E., 95. 
Rock Creek Cemetery, 279. 
Rogers, Randolph, 59. 
Roosevelt, Edith Kermit, 116, 233, 
281. 
Theodore, 52, 230, 27c, 281. 
Root, Elihu, 224. 
Ross, Edmund G., 211. 
Ross, Robert, 15. 
Royall, Ann, 20, 278. 

Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, 279. 
Saint John's Church, 280. 
Saint Paul's Church, 279. 
Sartoris, Algernon, 217. 

Nellie Grant, 212, 217. 
Scott, Winfield, 39, 183, 186, 194, 
236, 266, 267, 271, 273. 



Secession, Progress of, movement, 

27- 
Senate, United. States, 10, 55, 68, 

71, 86, 139. (See also Con- 
gress.) 
Seward, William H., 31, 43, 198, 

282. 
Shepherd, Alexander R., 46. 
Sheridan, Philip H., 267, 271. 
Sherman, John, 102. 

William T., 213, 271. 
Shuter's Hill, 54. 
Sickles, Daniel E., 211. 
Slavery, 23, 64, 99, 186, 275. (See 

also Emancipation.) 
Smith, Capt. John, 3. 

Margaret Bayard, 141. 
Smithsonian Institution, 273. 
Soldiers' Home, 84, 273. 
Sprague, Kate Chase, 202. 

William, 202. 
Stanton, Edwin M., 44, 200, 207, 

211. 
"Star-Spangled Banner," Song, 

252. 
Statues of Celebrities, 266. 
Stephens, Alexander H., 29, 65. 
Stewart, Alexander T., 214. 
Stockton, Robert F., 180. 
Stranger, "The Female," 242. 
Sumner, Charles, 68, 189. 
Sunderland, Rev. Dr. Byron, 99. 
Supreme Court of the United 

States, II, 67, 74. 
Surratt, Mary E., 283. 

Taft, William H., 52, 233, 270. 
Taney, Roger B., 34, 277. 
Tayloe, Mrs. Ogle, 170. 
Tayloe House, 281. 
Taylor, Zachary, 183, 195, 281. 
Telegraph, Atlantic, cable, 190. 

First American, 75, 182. 
Thomas, George H., 267. 



[290] 



Indi 



ex 



Thornton, Dr. William, i6, 55, 251. 
Tilden, Samuel J., 218. 
Timberlake, Mrs. (See Mrs. John 
H. Eaton.) 

Purser, 159, l68. 

Virginia, 179. 
Tracy, Benjamin F., 228. 
Trent Affair, 282. 
Trumbull, John, 59. 
Turreau, Louis M., 127. 
Tyler, John, 177, 280. 

Van Buren, John, 171. 

Martin, 158, 162, 169, 176, 256, 
280. ' ■' 
Victoria, Queen, 190. 

Walter, Thomas U., 56, 63. 
War of 1812, 14, 135, 270. ■ 
Ward, Artemus, 200. 

J. Q. A., 267. 
Washburn, Cadwallader, 102. 
Washburne, Elihu, 102. 
Washington, D.C., 

Beginnings of, i ; 

Captured by British in 1814, 15, 
56, 278; 

Growth of, 45 ; 

In Civil War Times, 24, 26; 

Journalism in Early Days, 20, 

154; 
Plan of, 5, 83, 114, 231; 



Washington, D.C., 
Police Force, 178; 
Removal of Government to, 7; 
Suburbs of, 235 ; 
Threatened by Gen. Early in 

1864, 41 ; 
Varying Fortunes of, 21. 
Washington, George, 3, 67, 74, 81, 
89, 118, 235, 238, 239, 240, 
243, 268. 
Martha, 118, 235, 240, 243, 249. 
Mary, 249. 
Washington National Monument, 

261, 270. 
Watts, George F., 270. 
Webster, Daniel, 68, 140, 164, 173. 
Weems, Rev. Mason L., 246. 
Welles, Gideon, 282. 
White House, 6, 8, 1 7, 1 1 4, 1 1 8, 1 3 5, 
147, 155, 162, 164, 172, 178, 
182, 184, 195, 197, 201, 219, 
231. 
Wilkes, Charles, 281. 
Williams, Harriet Beall. (See Bar- 
oness BoDisco.) 
Wilmot, David, 64. 
Wilson, Henry, 74, 276. 

Woodrow, 52, 73, 112, 234, 270. 
Windom, William, 228. 
Wirz, Henry, 279. 
Women visiting Congress, 93, 141. 
Wood, William P., 279. 



[291 ] 



4 



